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THE  FIRST  GLOOMSTER 


THE    DREAMERS 

A  Club.  Being  a  More  or  Less  Faith 
ful  Account  of  the  Literary  Exer 
cises  of  the  First  Regular  Meeting 
of  that  Organization,  Reported  by 
JOHN  KENDRICK  BANGS 

WITH  ILL  U  ST  RA  T  IONS 
Bij  EDWARD  PENFIELD 


NEW    YOEK    AND    LONDON 

HARPER   &    BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 

1899 


BY   THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 


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NEW    YORK    AND    LONDON  : 
HARPER   &   BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS. 


Copyright,  1899,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 


All  rights  reserved. 


WITH    ALL 
DUE    RESPECT    AND    PROPER    APOLOGIES 

TO 

RICHARD  HARDING  DAVIS 

JAMES   WHITCOMB   RILEY 

WILLIAM   DEAN    HO  WELLS 

RUDYARD   KIPLING 

HALL  CAINE 

SUNDRY  MAGAZINE  POETS 

ANTHONY   HOPE 

THE  WAR  CORRESPONDENTS 

A.  CONAN  DOYLE 

IAN   MACLAREN 

JAMES  M.  BARRIE 

THE  INVOLVULAR  CLUB 

AND 
MR.  DOOLEY 


CONTENTS 


I.  THE  IDEA 1 

II.  IN    WHICH    THOMAS   SNOBBE,  ESQ., 

OF  YONKERS,  UNFOLDS  A  TALE     .      21 

III.  IN  WHICH  A  MINCE-PIE  is  RESPONSI 

BLE  FOR  A  REMARKABLE  COINCI 
DENCE     44 

IV.  BEING  THE  CONTRIBUTION  OF  MR. 

BEDFORD  PARKE 59 

V.  THE  SALVATION  OF  FINDLAYSON      .      80 
VI.  IN  WHICH  HARRY  SNOBBE  RECITES 

A  TALE  OF  GLOOM 102 

VII.  THE    DREAMERS  Discuss   A   MAGA 
ZINE  POEM 123 

VIII.  DOLLY  VISITS  CHICAGO 142 

IX.  IN     WHICH     YELLOW    JOURNALISM 

CREEPS  IN  .  163 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

X.  THE   MYSTERY  OF   PINKIIAM'S  DIA 
MOND  STUD 185 

XI.  LANG    TAMMAS    AND    DRUMSHEUGH 

SWEAR  OFF 207 

XII.  CONCLUSION  —  LIKEWISE  MR.  BILLY 

JONES  ;    228 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGK 
THE  FIRST  GLOOMSTER    ....      Frontispiece 

DISCUSSING   THE   IDEA 3 

AND   SO   TO  DREAM 17 

THE    DREAMERS   DINE 25 

"'  REMEMBER   TO   BE   BRAVE '" 35 

'"  ELEANOR  HUYLER  HAS  DISAPPEARED '"    .  39 

"WRIT   A  POME   ABOUT  A  KID" 47 

"I   BOUGHT    A   BOOK   OF   VERSE " 51 

"IT   FILLED   ME   WITH  DISMAY" 55 

"  'COME    IN'" 61 

MARY 65 

EDWARDS   REBELS 71 

THE  VICEROY  EXAMINES   HIS  RUINED  SMILE   .  85 

THEY   GAVE   HIM   PUNCH 89 

THE  DONKEY  ENGINE  CALLS  ON  FINDLAYSON   .  93 

THE  END  OF    THE   GLOOMSTER 109 

WISHED    HER    A    HAPPY    NEW  YEAR    .       .       .       .117 

"'O    ARGENT  BROWED    SARCOPHAGUS'"      .       .  125 

vii 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

" SARCOPHAGUSTUS " 131 

MR.  BILLY   JONES 137 

"  '  I   MUST   SEE   HIM,'  SAID   DOLLY"   ....  145 

1 '  '  KAPE   YOUR  HOOSBAND   HOME  '  "  .      .      .      .  155 

MIXING    ILLUSTRATIONS 159 

THE    SHIP'S   BARBER   AT   WORK 167 

A    CLEVER   CAROM 177 

SINKING  THE   CASTILLA 181 

THE   LAMP-POSTS  WERE   TWISTED       .       .       .      .191 

HOLMES  IN  DISGUISE  INTERVIEWS  WATTLES   .  199 

"  'YOU  DID   TOO!'   SAID  POLLY" 203 

"  'HOOT  MON  !'" 209 

"A    SWEET-FACED   NURSE   APPEARED".       .      .  213 

TAMMAS  MEETS  DRUMSHEUGH 221 

MR.  JONES  BEGINS 231 

HE  DID  NOT   SEE 243 

THE   STENOGRAPHER  SLEPT       ......  247 


The  Dreamers  *.  A  Club- 


THE   DBEAMEKS:  A  CLUB 


I 

THE   IDEA 

THE  idea  was  certainly  an  original  one. 
It  was  Bedford  Parke  who  suggested  it 
to  Tenafly  Paterson,  and  Tenafly  was  so 
pleased  with  it  that  he  in  turn  unfolded 
it  in  detail  to  his  friend  Dobbs  Ferry, 
claiming  its  inception  as  his  very  own. 
Dobbs  was  so  extremely  enthusiastic  about 
it  that  he  invited  Tenafly  to  a  luncheon  at 
the  Waldoria  to  talk  over  the  possibilities 
of  putting  the  plan  into  practical  opera 
tion,  and  so  extract  from  it  whatever  of 
excellence  it  might  ultimately  be  found  to 
contain. 

A  1 


THE    DREAMERS:     A    CLUB 

<(  As  yet  it  is  only  an  idea,  you  know," 
said  Dobbs ;  "  and  if  you  have  ever  had 
any  experience  with  ideas,  Tenny,  you  are 
probably  aware  that,  unless  reduced  to  a 
practical  basis,  an  idea  is  of  no  more  value 
than  a  theory." 

"True,"  Tenafly  replied.  "I  can  de 
monstrate  that  in  five  minutes  at  the  Wal- 
doria.  For  instance,  you  see,  Dobbsy,  I 
have  an  idea  that  I  am  as  hungry  as  a  bear, 
but  as  yet  it  is  only  a  theory,  from  which 
I  derive  no  substantial  benefit.  Place  a 
portion  of  whitebait,  a  filet  Bearnaise,  and 
a  quart  of  Sauterne  before  me,  and — 

"  I  see,"  said  Dobbsy.     "  Come  along." 

And  they  went ;  and  the  result  of  that 
luncheon  at  the  Waldoria  was  the  forma 
tion  of  "The  Dreamers  :  A  Club."  The 
colon  was  Dobbs  Ferry's  suggestion.  The 
objects  of  the  club  were  literary,  and 
Dobbs,  who  was  an  observant  young  man, 
had  noticed  that  the  use  of  the  colon  in 
these  days  of  unregenerate  punctuation 
was  confined  almost  entirely  to  the  literary 
contingent  and  its  camp-followers.  With 


THE    IDEA 

small  poets  particularly  was  it  in  vogue, 
and  Dobbs — who,  by-the-way,  had  written 
some  very  dainty  French  poems  to  the  va 
rious  fiancees  with  whom  his  career  had 
been  checkered — had  a  sort  of  vague  idea 
that  if  his  brokerage  business  would  per 
mit  him  to  take  the  necessary  time  for  it  he 
might  become  famous  as  a  small  poet  him 
self.  The  French  poems  and  his  passion 
for  the  colon,  combined  with  an  exquisite 
chirography  which  he  had  assiduously  cul 
tivated,  all  contributed  to  assure  him  that 
it  was  only  lack  of  time  that  kept  him  in 
the  ranks  of  the  mute,  inglorious  Herricks. 
As  formulated  by  Dobbs  and  Tenafly, 
then,  Bedford  Parke's  suggestion  that  a 
Dreamers'  Club  be  formed  was  amplified 
into  this  :  Thirteen  choice  spirits,  consist 
ing  of  Dobbs,  Tenafly,  Bedford  Parke, 
Greenwich  Place,  Hudson  Eivers  of  Hast 
ings,  Monty  St.  Vincent,  Fulton  Streete, 
Berkeley  Hights,  Haarlem  Bridge,  the 
three  Snobbes  of  Yonkers  —  Tom,  Dick, 
and  Harry — and  Billy  Jones  of  the  Weekly 
Oracle,  were  to  form  themselves  into  an 
5 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

association  which  should  endeavor  to  ex 
tract  whatever  latent  literary  talent  the 
thirteen  members  might  have  within  them. 
It  was  a  generally  accepted  fact,  Bedford 
Parke  had  said,  that  all  literature,  not  even 
excepting  history,  was  based  upon  the  im 
agination.  Many  of  the  masterpieces  of 
fiction  had  their  basis  in  actual  dreams, 
and,  when  they  were  not  founded  on  such, 
might  in  every  case  be  said  to  be  directly 
attributable  to  what  might  properly  be 
called  waking  dreams.  It  was  the  misfort 
une  of  the  thirteen  gentlemen  who  were 
expected  to  join  this  association  that  the 
business  and  social  engagements  of  all, 
with  the  possible  exception  of  Billy  Jones 
of  the  Weekly  Oracle,  were  such  as  to  pre 
vent  their  indulgence  in  these  waking 
dreams,  dreams  which  should  tend  to 
lower  the  colors  of  Howells  before  those 
of  Tenafly  Paterson,  and  cause  the  mem 
ory  of  Hawthorne  to  wither  away  before 
the  scorching  rays  of  that  rising  sun  of 
genius,  Tom  Snobbe  of  Yonkers.  Snobbe, 
by-the-way,  must  have  inherited  literary 
6 


THE    IDEA 

ability  from  his  father,  who  had  once 
edited  a  church  -  fair  paper  which  ran 
through  six  editions  in  one  week — one 
edition  a  day  for  each  day  of  the  fair — 
adding  an  unreceipted  printer's  bill  for 
eighty-seven  dollars  to  the  proceeds  to  be 
divided  among  the  heathen  of  Central 
Africa. 

( '  It's,  a  well-known  fact,"  said  Bedford 
— "  a  sad  fact,  but  still  a  fact — that  if  Poe 
had  not  been  a  hard  drinker  he  never  would 
have  amounted  to  a  row  of  beans  as  a 
writer.  His  dreams  were  induced — and  I 
say,  what's  the  matter  with  our  inducing 
dreams  and  then  putting  'em  down  ?" 

That  was  the  scheme  in  a  nutshell — to 
induce  dreams  and  put  them  down.  The 
receipt  was  a  simple  one.  The  club  was 
to  meet  once  a  month,  and  eat  and  drink 
"  such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made  of";  the 
meeting  was  then  to  adjourn,  the  members 
going  immediately  home  and  to  bed ;  the 
dreams  of  each  were  to  be  carefully  noted 
in  their  every  detail,  and  at  the  following 
meeting  were  to  be  unfolded  such  soul- 
7 


THE    DREAMERS:     A    CLUB 

harrowing  tales  as  might  with  propriety 
be  based  thereon.  An  important  part  of 
the  programme  was  a  stenographer,  whose 
duty  it  would  be  to  take  down  the  stories 
as  they  were  told  and  put  them  in  type 
written  form,  which  Dobbs  was  sure  he 
had  heard  an  editor  say  was  one  of  the 
first  steps  towards  a  favorable  considera 
tion  by  professional  readers  of  the  manu 
scripts  of  the  ambitious. 

"I  am  told,"  said  he,  "that  many  a 
truly  meritorious  production  has  gone 
unpublished  for  years  because  the  labor 
of  deciphering  the  author's  handwriting 
proved  too  much  for  the  reader's  endur 
ance — and  it  is  very  natural  that  it  should 
be  so.  A  professional  reader  is,  after  all, 
only  human,  and  when  to  the  responsibili 
ties  of  his  office  is  added  the  wearisome 
task  of  wading  through  a  Spencerian  mo 
rass  after  the  will-o'-wisp  of  an  idea,  I 
don't  blame  him  for  getting  impatient. 
Why,  I  saw  the  original  manuscript  of 
one  of  Charles  Dickens's  novels  once, 
and  I  don't  see  how  any  one  knew  it  was 
8 


THE    IDEA 

good  enough  to  publish  until  it  got  into 
print !" 

"  That's  simply  a  proof  of  what  I've  al 
ways  said/'  observed  one  of  the  Snobbe 
boys.  "If  Charles  Dickens's  works  had 
been  written  by  me,  no  one  would  ever 
have  published  them." 

"  I  haven't  a  doubt  of  it,"  returned 
Billy  Jones  of  the  Oracle,  dryly.  "  Why, 
Snobbey,  my  boy,  I  believe  if  you  had 
written  the  plays  of  Shakespeare  they'd 
have  been  forgotten  ages  ago  !" 

"  So  do  I,"  returned  Snobbe,  innocently. 
"This  is  a  queer  world." 

<f  The  stenographer  will  save  us  a  great 
deal  of  trouble,"  said  Bedford.  "The 
hard  part  of  literary  work  is,  after  all,  the 
labor  of  production  in  a  manual  sense. 
These  real  geniuses  don't  have  to  think. 
Their  ideas  come  to  them,  and  they  let 
'em  develop  themselves.  In  realistic  writ 
ing,  as  I  understand  it,  the  author  sits 
down  with  his  pen  in  his  hand  and  his 
characters  in  his  mind's  eye,  and  they 
simply  run  along,  and  he  does  the  private- 
9 


THE    DREAMERS:     A    CLUB 

detective  act — follows  after  them  and  jots 
down  all  they  do.  In  imaginative  writing 
it's  done  the  same  way.  The  characters 
of  these  ridiculous  beings  we  read  of  are 
quite  as  real  to  the  imaginative  writer  as 
the  characters  of  the  realist  are  to  the  lat 
ter,  and  they  do  supernatural  things  natu 
rally.  So  you  see  these  things  require  very 
little  intellectual  labor.  It's  merely  the 
drudgery  of  chasing  a  commonplace  or 
supernatural  set  of  characters  about  the 
world  in  order  to  get  400  pages  full  of 
reading-matter  about  'em  that  makes  the 
literary  profession  a  laborious  one.  Our 
stenographer  will  enable  us  to  avoid  all 
this.  There  isn't  a  man  of  us  but  can 
talk  as  easily  as  he  can  fall  off  a  log,  and 
a  tale  once  told  at  our  dinners  becomes  in 
the  telling  a  bit  of  writing." 

"But,  my  dearParke,"  said  Billy  Jones 
of  the  Oracle,  who  had  been  a  "  literary 
journalist,"  as  his  fond  grandmother  called 
it,  for  some  years,  "  a  story  told  is  hardly 
likely  to  be  in  the  form  calculated  to  be 
come  literature." 

10 


THE    IDEA 

"  That's  just  what  we  want  you  for, 
Billy/'  Bedford  replied.  "  You  know 
how  to  give  a  thing  that  last  finishing- 
touch  which  will  make  it  go,  where  other 
wise  it  might  forever  remain  a  fixture  in 
the  author's  pigeon-hole.  When  our  stories 
are  told  and  type-written,  we  want  you  to 
go  over  them,  correct  the  type-writer's 
spelling,  and  make  whatever  alterations 
you  may  think,  after  consulting  with  us, 
to  be  necessary.  Then,  if  the  tales  are 
ever  published  as  a  collection,  you  can  have 
your  name  on  the  title-page  as  editor." 

"  Thanks,"  answered  Billy,  gratefully. 
"I  shall  be  charmed." 

And  then  he  hurried  back  to  his  apart 
ments,  and  threw  himself  on  his  bed  in  a 
paroxysm  of  laughter  which  seemed  never- 
ending,  but  which  in  reality  did  not  last 
more  than  three  hours  at  the  most. 

Hudson  .Rivers  of  Hastings,  when  the 
idea  was  suggested  to  him,  was  the  most 
enthusiastic  of  all — so  enthusiastic  that  the 
Snobbe  boys  thought  that,  in  their  own 
parlance,  he  ought  to  be  "  called  down." 
11 


THE    DREAMERS:     A    CLUB 

( '  It's  bad  form  to  go  crazy  over  an  idea/" 
they  said.  "If  Buddy's  going  to  behave 
this  way  about  it,  he  ought  to  be  kept  out 
altogether.  It  is  all  very  well  to  experi 
ence  emotions,  but  no  well-bred  person 
ever  shows  them  —  that  is,  not  in  Yon- 
kers." 

"Ah,  but  you  don't  understand  Hud 
dy,"  said  Tenafly  Paterson.  "  Huddy  has 
two  great  ambitions  in  this  life.  One  is 
to  get  into  the  Authors'  Club,  and  the 
other  is  to  marry  a  certain  young  woman 
whose  home  is  in  Boston  and  whose  am 
bitions  are  Bostonian.  To  appear  before 
the  world  as  a  writer,  which  the  Dreamers 
will  give  him  a  chance  to  do  at  small  ex 
pense,  will  help  him  on  to  the  realization 
of  his  most  cherished  hopes ;  in  fact, 
Huddy  told  me  that  he  thought  we  ought 
to  publish  the  proceedings  of  the  club  at 
least  four  times  a  year,  so  establishing  a 
quarterly  magazine,  to  which  we  shall  all 
be  regular  contributors.  He  thinks  it  will 
pay  for  itself,  and  knows  it  will  make  us  all 
famous,  because  Billy  Jones  is  certain  to 
12 


THE    IDEA 

see  that  everything  that  goes  out  is  first 
chop,  and  Fm  inclined  to  believe  Huddy 
is  right.  The  continual  drip,  drip,  drip 
of  a  drop  of  water  on  a  stone  will  gradual 
ly  wear  away  the  stone,  and,  by  Jove  !  be 
fore  we  know  it,  by  constant  hammering 
away  at  this  dream  scheme  of  ours  we'll 
gain  a  position  that  won't  be  altogether 
unenviable." 

"  That's  so,"  said  Billy.  "  I  wouldn't 
wonder  if  with  the  constant  drip,  drip, 
drip  of  your  drops  of  ink  and  inspiration 
you  could  wear  the  public  out  in  a  very 
little  while.  The  only  troublesome  thing 
will  be  in  getting  a  publisher  for  your 
quarterly." 

"I  haven't  any  idea  that  we  want  a 
publisher,"  said  Bedford  Parke.  "  We've 
got  capital  enough  among  ourselves  to 
bring  the  thing  out,  and  so  I  say,  what's 
the  use  of  letting  anybody  else  in  on  the 
profits  ?  A  publisher  wouldn't  give  us 
more  than  ten  per  cent,  in  royalties.  If 
we  publish  it  ourselves  we'll  get  the  whole 
thing." 

13 


THE    DREAMERS:     A    CLUB 


/'  assented  Tom  Snobbe,  "and, 
what's  more,  it  will  have  a  higher  tone  to 
it  if  we  can  say  on  the  title-page  '  Private 
ly  printed/  eh  ?  That  '11  make  everybody 
in  society  want  one  for  his  library,  and 
everybody  not  in  society  will  be  crazy  to 
get  it  because  it's  aristocratic  all  through." 

"I  hadn't  thought  of  that,"  said  Billy 
Jones.  "  I've  no  doubt  you  are  right, 
only  I'd  think  you'd  sell  more  copies  if 
you'd  also  put  on  the  title-page  '  For  cir 
culation  among  the  elite  only.'  Then 
every  man,  woman,  or  child'  who  hap 
pened  to  get  a  copy  would  take  pride  in 
showing  it  to  others,  who  would  immedi 
ately  send  for  it,  because  not  having  it 
would  seem  to  indicate  that  one  was  not 
in  the  swim." 

Nor  were  the  others  to  whom  the  prop 
osition  was  advanced  any  less  desirous  to 
take  part.  They  saw,  one  and  all,  op 
portunities  for  a  very  desirable  distinction 
through  the  medium  of  the  Dreamers, 
and  within  two  weeks  of  the  original  for 
mation  of  the  plan  the  club  was  definite- 
14 


THE    IDEA 

ly  organized.  Physicians  were  consulted 
by  the  various  members  as  to  what  edibles 
contained  the  properties  most  likely  to 
produce  dreams  of  the  nature  desired,  and 
at  the  organization  meeting  all  but  Billy 
Jones  were  well  stocked  with  suggestions 
for  the  inauguration  dinner.  Hudson 
Itivers  was  of  the  opinion  that  there 
should  be  six  courses  at  that  dinner,  each 
one  of  Welsh-rabbit,  but  varying  in  form, 
such  as  Welsh-rabbit  puree,  for  instance, 
in  which  the  cheese  should  have  the  con 
sistency  of  pea-soup  rather  than  of  leath 
er;  such  as  Welsh-rabbit  pate,  in  which 
the  cheese  should  rest  within  walls  of 
pastry  instead  of  lying  quiescent  and  in 
viting  like  a  yellow  mantle  upon  a  piece 
of  toast ;  then  a  Welsh-rabbit  roast ;  and 
so  on  all  through  the  banquet,  rabbit  upon 
rabbit,  the  whole  washed  down  with  the 
accepted  wines  of  the  ordinary  banquet, 
which  experience  had  taught  them  were 
likely  in  themselves  to  assist  in  the  work 
of  dream-making. 

Monty  St.  Vincent  observed  that  he  had 
15 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

no  doubt  that  the  Welsh -rabbit  dinner 
would  work  wonders,  but  he  confessed  his 
inability  to  see  any  reason  why  the  club 
should  begin  its  labors  by  committing 
suicide.  He  added  that,  for  his  part,  he 
would  not  eat  six  Welsh  rabbits  at  one  sit 
ting  if  he  was  sure  of  Shakespeare's  im 
mortality  as  his  reward,  because,  however 
attractive  immortality  was,  he  preferred 
mortality  in  the  flesh  to  the  other  in  the 
abstract.  If  the  gentlemen  would  begin 
the  meal  with  a  grilled  lobster  apiece,  he 
suggested,  going  thence  by  an  easy  stage 
to  a  devilled  bird,  rounding  up  with  a 
"  slip-on" — which,  in  brief,  is  a  piece  of 
mince-pie  smothered  in  a  blanket  of  molt 
en  cheese  —  he  was  ready  to  take  the 
plunge,  but  further  than  this  he  would 
not  go.  The  other  members  were  dis 
posed  to  agree  with  Monty.  They  thought 
the  idea  of  eating  six  Welsh  rabbits  in  a 
single  evening  was  preposterous,  and  that 
in  making  such  a  suggestion  Huddy  was 
inspired  by  one  of  but  two  possible  mo 
tives — that  he  wished  to  leap  to  the  fore- 
16 


AND  SO   TO  DHEAM 


THE    IDEA 

most  position  in  imaginative  literature  at 
one  bound,  or  else  was  prompted,  by  jeal 
ousy  of  what  the  others  might  do,  to  wish 
to  kill  the  club  at  its  very  start.  Huddy 
denied  these  aspersions  upon  his  motives 
with  vociferous  indignation,  and  to  show 
his  sincerity  readily  acquiesced  in  the 
adoption  of  Monty  St.  Vincent's  menu  as 
already  outlined. 

The  date  of  the  dinner  was  set,  Billy 
Jones  was  made  master  of  ceremonies, 
the  dinner  was  ordered,  and  eaten  amid 
scenes  of  such  revelry  as  was  possible  in 
the  presence  of  the  Snobbe  boys,  to  whom 
'anything  in  the  way  of  unrestrained  en 
joyment  was  a  bore  and  bad  form,  and  at 
its  conclusion  the  revellers  went  straight 
home  to  bed  and  to  dream. 

Two  weeks  later  they  met  again  over 
viands  of  a  more  digestible  nature  than 
those  which  lent  interest  to  the  first  din 
ner,  and  told  the  tales  which  follow.  And 
I  desire  to  add  here  that  my  report  of  this 
dinner  and  the  literature  there  produced 
is  based  entirely  upon  the  stenographer's 
19 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

notes,  coupled  with  additional  informa 
tion  of  an  interesting  kind  furnished  me 
by  my  friend  William  Jones,  Esq.,  Third 
Assistant  Exchange  Editor  of  The  Weekly 
Oracle,  a  Journal  of  To-day,  Yesterday, 
and  To-morrow. 


II 


IN"     WHICH     THOMAS     SNOBBE,      ESQ.,     OF 
YONKERS,  UNFOLDS   A    TALE 

THE  second  dinner  of  the  Dreamers  had 
been  served,  all  but  the  coffee,  when  Mr. 
Billy  Jones,  of  the  Oracle,  rapped  upon 
the  table  with  a  dessert-spoon  and  called 
the  members  to  order. 

"  Gentlemen,"  said  he,  when  all  was 
quiet,  "  we  have  reached  the  crucial  crisis 
of  our  club  career.  We  have  eaten  the 
stuff  of  which  our  dreams  were  to  be 
made,  and  from  what  I  can  gather  from 
the  reports  of  those  who  are  now  seated 
about  this  festal  board — and  I  am  de 
lighted  to  note  that  the  full  membership 
of  our  organization  is  here  represented— 
there  is  not  a  single  one  of  you  who  is  un- 
21 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

prepared  for  the  work  we  have  in  hand, 
and,  as  master  of  ceremonies,  it  becomes 
my  pleasant  duty  to  inform  you  that  the 
hour  has  arrived  at  which  it  behooveth  us 
to  begin  the  narration  of  those  tales  which 
— of  those  tales  which  I  am  certain — yes, 
gentlemen,  very  certain — will  cause  the 
unlaid  ghosts  of  those  masters  of  the 
story-tellers5  art — 

"  Is  this  a  continued  story  Billy  is  giv 
ing  us  ?"  observed  Tenafly  Paterson. 

"No,"  replied  Bedford  Parke,  with  a 
laugh  ;  ' '  it  is  only  a  life  sentence." 

"  Get  him  to  commute  it !"  ejaculated 
Hudson  Rivers. 

"  Order,  gentlemen,  order  !"  cried  the 
master  of  ceremonies,  again  rapping  upon 
the  table.  "The  members  will  kindly 
not  interrupt  the  speaker.  As  I  was  say 
ing,  gentlemen,"  he  continued,  "we  are 
now  to  listen  to  the  narration  of  tales 
which  I  am  convinced  will  cause  the  un 
laid  ghosts  of  the  past  grand  masters  of 
the  story-tellers"  art  to  gnash  their  spirit 
teeth  with  anguish  for  that  they  in  life 
22 


SNOBBE    UNFOLDS    A    TALE 

failed  to  realize  the  opportunities  that 
were  theirs  in  not  having  told  the  tales  to 
which  we  are  about  to  listen,  and  over 
which,  when  published,  the  leading  living 
literary  lights  will  writhe  in  jealousy." 

When  the  applause  which  greeted  these 
remarks  had  subsided,  Mr.  Jones  resumed: 

"  That  there  may  be  no  question  of  pre 
cedence  among  the  gifted  persons  from 
whom  we  are  now  to  hear,  I  have  provided 
myself  with  a  small  leathern  bottle,  such 
as  is  to  be  seen  in  most  billiard-parlors, 
within  which  I  have  placed  twelve  num 
bered  ivory  balls.  These  I  will  now  pro 
ceed  to  distribute  among  }7ou.  When  you 
receive  them,  I  request  that  you  immedi 
ately  return  them  to  me,  that  I  may  ar 
range  the  programme  according  to  your 
respective  numbers." 

Mr.  Jones  thereupon  distributed  the 
ivory  balls,  and  when  the  returns  had 
been  made,  according  to  his  request,  he 
again  rose  to  his  feet  and  announced  that 
to  Mr.  Thomas  Snobbe,  of  Yonkers,  had 
fallen  the  lot  of  telling  the  first  story, 
23 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

adding  that  he  took  great  pleasure  in  the 
slightly  supererogative  task  that  devolved 
upon  him  of  presenting  Mr.  Snobbe  to  his 
audience.  Mr.  Snobbe's  health  was  drunk 
vociferously,  after  which,  the  stenographer 
having  announced  himself  as  ready  to  be 
gin,  the  distinguished  son  of  Yonkers  arose 
and  told  the  following  story,  which  he 
called 

SQUIBBER'S  FAILURE 


You  can't  always  tell  what  kind  of  a  day 
you  are  going  to  have  in  town  in  October 
just  because  you  happen  to  have  been  in 
town  on  previous  October  days,  and  Van 
Squibber,  for  that  reason,  was  not  sur 
prised  when  his  man,  on  waking  him,  in 
formed  him  that  it  was  cold  out.  Even 
if  he  had  been  surprised  he  would  not 
have  shown  it,  for  fear  of  demoralizing 
his  man  by  setting  him  a  bad  example. 
"  We  must  take  things  as  they  come/' 
Van  Squibber  had  said  to  the  fellow  when 
he  engaged  him,  "and  I  shall  expect  you 
to  be  ready  always  for  any  emergency  that 
24 


SNOBBE    UNFOLDS    A    TALE 

may  arise.  If  on  waking  in  the  morning 
I  call  for  a  camel's-hair  shawl  and  a  bottle 
of  Nepaul  pepper,  it  will  be  your  duty  to 
see  that  I  get  them  without  manifesting 
the  slightest  surprise  or  asking  any  ques 
tions.  Here  is  your  next  year's  salary  in 
advance.  Get  my  Melton  overcoat  and 
my  box,  and  have  them  at  the  Rah  way 
station  at  7.15  to-morrow  morning.  If 
I  am  not  there,  don't  wait  for  me,  but 
come  back  here  and  boil  my  egg  at  once." 
This  small  bit  of  a  lecture  had  had  its 
effect  on  the  man,  to  whom  thenceforth 
nothing  was  impossible  ;  indeed,  upon  this 
very  occasion  he  demonstrated  to  his  em 
ployer  his  sterling  worth,  for  when,  on 
looking  over  Van  Squibber's  wardrobe,  he 
discovered  that  his  master  had  no  Melton 
overcoat,  he  telegraphed  to  his  tailor's 
and  had  one  made  from  his  previous  meas 
ure  in  time  to  have  it  with  Van  Squibber's 
box  at  the  Rah  way  station  at  the  stipu 
lated  hour  the  following  morning.  Of 
course  Van  Squibber  was  not  there.  He 
had  instructed  his  man  as  he  had  simply 
27 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

to  test  him,  and,  furthermore,  the  egg 
was  boiled  to  perfection.  The  test  cost 
Van  Squibber  about  $150,  but  it  was  suc 
cessful,  and  it  was  really  worth  the  money 
to  know  that  his  man  was  all  that  he 
should  be. 

"  He's  not  half  bad/'  said  Van  Squib 
ber,  as  he  cracked  the  egg. 

"  It's  wintry/'  said  Van  Squibber's 
man  on  the  morning  of  the  5th  of  Octo 
ber. 

"  Well/"  Van  Squibber  said,  sleepily, 
"  what  of  that  ?  You  have  your  instruc 
tions  as  to  the  bodily  temperature  I  de 
sire  to  maintain.  Select  my  clothing,  as 
usual — and  mark  you,  man,  yesterday  was 
springy,  and  you  let  me  go  to  the  club  in 
summery  attire.  I  was  two  and  a  half  de 
grees  too  warm.  You  are  getting  careless. 
What  are  my  engagements  to-day  ?" 

"University  settlement  at  eleven,  lunch 
eon  at  the  Actors'  at  one,  drive  with  the 
cynical  Miss  Netherwood  at  three,  five- 
o'clock  tea  at  four — " 

"  What  ?"  cried  Van  Squibber,  sharply. 
28 


SNOBBE    UNFOLDS    A    TALE 

"  At  fuf — five,  I  should  say,  sir/'  stam 
mered  the  embarrassed  man. 

"Thought  so,"  said  Van  Squibber. 
"Proceed,  and  be  more  careful.  The  very 
idea  of  five-o'clock  tea  at  four  is  shocking." 

"  Dinner  with  the  Austrian  ambassador 
at  eight,  opera  at  eleven — 

"  In  October  ?  Opera  ?"  cried  Van 
Squibber. 

"  Comic,"  said  the  man.  "  It  is  Flop- 
per's  last  night,  sir,  and  you  are  to  ring 
down  the  curtain." 

"True,"  said  Van  Squibber,  medita 
tively — "true;  Pd  forgotten.  And  then  ?" 

"  At  midnight  you  are  to  meet  Red 
Mike  at  Cherry  Street  and  Broadway  to 
accompany  him  to  see  how  he  robs  na 
tional  banks,  for  the  Sunday  Whir  aid." 

"  What  bank  is  it  to  be  ?" 

"  The  Seventeenth  National." 

"Gad!"  cried  Van  Squibber,  "that's 
hard  luck.  It's  my  bank.  Wire  Red  Mike 
and  ask  him  to  make  it  the  Sixteenth  Na 
tional,  at  once.  Bring  me  my  smoking- 
jacket  and  a  boiled  soda  mint  drop.  I 
29 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

don't  care  for  any  breakfast  this  morning. 
And,  by -the -way,  I  feel  a  little  chilly. 
Take  a  quinine  pill  for  me." 

"Your  egg  is  ready,  sir/'  said  the  man, 
tremulously. 

"Eat  it,"  said  Van  Squibber,  tersely, 
"and  deduct  the  Cafe  Savarin  price  of  a 
boiled  egg  from  your  salary.  How  often 
must  I  tell  you  not  to  have  my  breakfast 
boiled  until  I  am  boil — I  mean  ready  until 
I  am  ready  for  it  ?" 

The  man  departed  silently,  and  Van 
Squibber  turned  over  and  went  to  sleep. 

An  hour  later,  having  waited  for  his 
soda  mint  drop  as  long  as  his  dignity  would 
permit,  Van  Squibber  arose  and  dressed 
and  went  for  a  walk  in  Central  Park.  It 
was  eccentric  of  him  to  do  this,  but  he  did 
it  nevertheless. 

"  How  Travers  would  laugh  if  he  saw 
me  walking  in  Central  Park  !"  he  thought. 
"  He'd  probably  ask  me  when  I'd  come  over 
from  Germany,"  he  added.  And  then, 
looking  ahead,  a  thing  Van  Squibber  rarely 
did,  by- the- way — for  you  can't  always  tell 
30 


SNOBBE    UNFOLDS    A    TALE 

by  looking  ahead  what  may  happen  to 
you — his  eyes  were  confronted  by  a  more 
or  less  familiar  back. 

"Dear  me!"  he  said.  "If  that  isn't 
Eleanor  Huyler's  back,  whose  back  is  it, 
by  Jove?" 

Insensibly  Van  Squibber  quickened  his 
pace.  This  was  also  a  thing  he  rarely  did. 
"  Haste  is  bad  form,"  he  had  once  said  to 
Travers,  who,  on  leaving  Delmonico's  at 
7.20,  seemed  anxious  to  catch  the  7.10 
train  for  Eiverdale.  Insensibly  quicken 
ing  his  pace,  he  soon  found  himself  beside 
the  owner  of  the  back,  and,  as  his  pre 
monitions  had  told  him,  it  was  Eleanor 
Huyler. 

"Good-morning,"  he  said. 

"  Why,  Mr.  Van  Squibber  !"  she  replied, 
with  a  terrified  smile.  "  You  here  ?" 

"Well,"  returned  Van  Squibber,  not 
anxious  to  commit  himself,  "I  think  so, 
though  I  assure  you,  Miss  Huyler,  I  am 
not  at  all  certain.  I  seem  to  be  here,  but 
I  must  confess  I  am  not  quite  myself  this 
morning.  My  man — " 
31 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

"Yes  —  I  know,"  returned  the  girl, 
hastily.  "Fve  heard  of  him.  He  is  your 
alter  ego." 

"I  had  not  noticed  it,"  said  Van  Squib 
ber,  somewhat  nonplussed.  "I  think  he 
is  English,  though  he  may  be  Italian,  as 
you  suggest.  But,"  he  added,  to  change 
the  subject,  "you  seem  disturbed.  Your 
smile  is  a  terrified  smile,  as  has  been  al 
ready  noted." 

"It  is,"  said  Miss  Huyler,  looking  anx 
iously  about  her. 

"And  may  I  ask  why?"  asked  Van 
Squibber,  politely — for  to  do  things  po 
litely  was  Van  Squibber's  ambition. 

"  I—I— well,  really,  Mr.  Van  Squibber," 
the  girl  replied,  "I  am  always  anxious 
when  you  are  about.  The  fact  is,  you 
know,  the  things  that  happen  when  you 
are  around  are  always  so  very  extraordi 
nary.  I  came  here  for  a  quiet  walk,  but 
now  that  you  have  appeared  I  am  quite 
certain  that  something  dramatic  is  about 
to  occur.  You  see — you — you  have  turned 
up  so  often  at  the — what  I  may  properly 
32 


SNOBBE    UNFOLDS    A    TALE 

call,  I  think,  the  nick  of  time,  and  so  rare 
ly  at  any  other  time,  that  I  feel  as  though 
some  disaster  were  impending  which  you 
alone  can  avert/' 

(( And  what  then  ?"  said  Van  Squibber, 
proudly.  "If  I  am  here,  what  bodes  dis 
aster  ?" 

"That  is  the  question  I  am  asking  my 
self,"  returned  Miss  Huyler,  whose  grow 
ing  anxiety  was  more  or  less  painful  to 
witness.  "Can  your  luck  hold  out? 
Will  your  ability  as  an  averter  of  danger 
hold  out  ?  In  short,  Mr.  Van  Squibber, 
are  you  infallible  ?" 

The  question  came  to  Van  Squibber  like 
a  flash  of  lightning  out  of  a  clear  sky. 
It  was  too  pertinent.  Had  he  not  often 
wondered  himself  as  to  his  infallibility  ? 
Had  he  not  only  the  day  before  said  to 
Travers,  "You  can't  always  tell  in  ad 
vance  just  how  a  thing  you  are  going  into 
may  turn  out,  even  though  you  have  been 
through  that  thing  many  times,  and  think 
you  do." 

"  I  do  lead  a  dramatic  life,"  he  said, 
c  33 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

quietly,  hoping  by  a  show  of  serenity  to 
reassure  her.  "But/'  he  added,  proudly, 
"  I  am,  after  all,  Van  Squibber  ;  I  am  here 
to  do  whatever  is  sent  me  to  do.  I  am 
not  a  fatalist,  but  I  regard  myself  as  the 
chosen  instrument  of  fate — or  something. 
So  far,  I  have  not  failed.  On  the  basis  of 
averages,  I  am  not  likely  to  fail  now.  Fate, 
or  something,  has  chosen  me  to  succeed." 

"  That  is  true/'  said  Eleanor — "  quite 
true ;  but  there  are  exceptions  to  all  rules, 
and  I  would  rather  you  would  fail  to  rescue 
some  other  girl  from  a  position  of  peril 
than  myself." 

That  Miss  Huyler's  words  were  pro 
phetic,  the  unhappy  Van  Squibber  was  to 
realize,  and  that  soon,  for  almost  as  they 
spoke  the  cheeks  of  both  were  blanched 
by  a  dreadful  roar  in  the  bushes  beside 
the  path  upon  which  they  walked. 

"  Shall  I  leave  you  ?"  asked  Van  Squib 
ber,  politely. 

"  Not  now — oh,  not  now,  I  beg!"  cried 
Miss  Huyler.  "It  is  too  late.  The 
catastrophe  is  imminent.  You  should 


SNOBBE    UNFOLDS    A    TALE 

have  gone  before  the  author  brought  it  on. 
Finding  me  defenceless  and  you  gone,  he 
might  have  spared  me.  As  it  is,  you  are 
here,  and  must  fulfil  your  destiny." 

(e  Very  well,"  returned  Van  Squibber. 
"That  being  so,  I  will  see  what  this  roar 
ing  is.  If  it  is  a  child  endeavoring  to 
frighten  you,  I  shall  get  his  address  and 
have  my  man  chastise  his  father,  for  I 
could  never  strike  a  child ;  but  if  it  is  a 
lion,  as  I  fear,  I  shall  do  what  seems  best 
under  the  circumstances.  I  have  been 
told,  Miss  Huyler,  that  a  show  of  bravery 
awes  a  wild  beast,  while  a  manifestation 
of  cowardice  causes  him  to  spring  at  once 
upon  the  coward.  Therefore,  if  it  be  a 
lion,  do  you  walk  boldly  up  to  him  and 
evince  a  cool  head,  while  I  divert  his  at 
tention  from  you  by  running  away.  In 
this  way  you,  at  least,  will  be  saved." 

"  Noble  fellow  !"  thought  Eleanor  to 
herself.  "  If  he  were  to  ask  me,  I  think 
I  might  marry  him." 

Meanwhile  Van  Squibber  had  investi 
gated,  and  was  horror-struck  to  find  his 
37 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

misgivings  entirety  too  well  founded.  It 
was  the  lion  from  the  park  menagerie  that 
had  escaped,  and  was  now  waiting  in  am 
bush  to  pounce  upon  the  chance  pedes 
trian. 

"Remember,  Eleanor/'  he  cried,  for 
getting  for  the  moment  that  he  had  never 
called  her  by  any  but  her  last  name  with 
its  formal  prefix — "  remember  to  be  brave. 
That  will  awe  him,  and  then  when  he  sees 
me  running  he  will  pursue  me." 

Removing  his  shoes,  Van  Squibber, 
with  a  cry  which  brought  the  hungry 
beast  bounding  out  into  the  path,  started 
on  a  dead  run,  while  Miss  Huyler,  full  of 
confidence  that  the  story  would  end  hap 
pily  whatever  she  might  do,  walked  boldly 
up  to  the  tawny  creature,  wondering  much, 
however,  why  her  rescuer  had  removed  his 
shoes.  It  was  strange  that,  knowing  Van 
Squibber  as  well  as  she  did,  she  did  not  at 
once  perceive  his  motive  in  declining  to 
run  in  walking-shoes,  but  in  moments  of 
peril  we  are  all  excusable  for  our  vaga 
ries  of  thought !  You  never  can  tell,  when 
38 


ELEANOR  HUYLER   HAS  DISAPPEARED 


SNOBBE    UNFOLDS    A    TALE 

you  are  in  danger,,  what  may  happen  next, 
for  if  you  could  you  would  know  how  it 
is  all  going  to  turn  out ;  but  as  it  is,  mental 
disturbance  is  quite  to  be  expected. 

For  once  Van  Squibber  failed.  He  ran 
fast  enough  and  betrayed  enough  coward 
ice  to  attract  the  attention  of  ten  lions, 
but  this  special  lion,  by  some  fearful  idi 
osyncrasy  of  fate,  which  you  never  can 
count  on,  was  not  to  be  deceived.  With 
a  louder  roar  than  any  he  had  given,  he 
pounced  upon  the  brave  woman,  and  in 
an  instant  she  was  no  more.  Van  Squib 
ber,  turning  to  see  how  matters  stood, 
was*just  in  time  to  witness  the  final  en 
gulf  ment  of  the  fair  girl  in  the  lion's 
jaws. 

"Egad!"  he  cried.  "  I  have  failed  ! 
And  now  what  remains  to  be  done  ?  Shall 
I  return  and  fight  the  lion,  or  shall  I  keep 
on  and  go  to  the  club  ?  If  I  kill  the  lion, 
people  will  know  that  I  have  been  walk 
ing  in  the  park  before  breakfast.  If  I 
continue  my  present  path  and  go  to  the 
club,  the  fellows  will  all  want  to  know 
41 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

what  I  mean  by  coming  without  my  shoes 
on.  What  a  dilemma  !  Ah  !  I  have  it ; 
I  will  go  home." 

And  that  is  what  Van  Squibber  did. 
He  went  back  to  his  rooms  in  the  Quig- 
more  at  once,  hastily  undressed,,  and  when, 
an  hour  later,  his  man  returned  with  the 
soda  mint  drop,  he  was  sleeping  peacefully. 

That  night  he  met  Travers  at  the  club 
reading  the  Evening  Moon. 

"  Hello,  Van  !"  said  Travers.  "  Heard 
the  news  ?" 

"  No.  What  ?"  asked  Van  Squibber, 
languidly. 

"Eleanor  Iluyler  has  disappeared. * 

"  By  Jove  !"  cried  Van  Squibber,  with 
well-feigned  surprise.  "  I  heard  the  boys 
crying  ( Extra/  but  I  never  dreamed  they 
would  put  out  an  extra  for  her." 

"  They  haven't,"  said  Travers.  "  The 
extra's  about  the  lion." 

"  Ah  !  And  what's  happened  to  the 
lion  ?"  cried  Van  Squibber,  nervously. 

"  He's  dead.  Got  loose  this  morning 
early,  and  was  found  at  ten  o'clock  dying 
42 


SNOBBE    UNFOLDS    A    TALE 

of  indigestion.  It  is  supposed  he  has  de 
voured  some  man,  name  unknown,  for 
before  his  nose  was  an  uneaten  patent- 
leather  pump,  size  9f-  B,  and  in  his  throat 
was  stuck  the  other,  half  eaten." 

"  Ha  I"  muttered  Van  Squibber,  turning 
pale.  ' '  And  they  don't  know  whose  shoes 
they  were?"  he  added,  in  a  hoarse  whisper. 

"  No/'  said  Travers.  "  There's  no  clew, 
even/' 

Van  Squibber  breathed  a  sigh  of  relief. 

"  Robert !"  he  cried,  addressing  the 
waiter,  "bring  me  a  schooner  of  absinthe, 
and.  ask  Mr.  Travers  what  he'll  have." 
And  then,  turning,  he  said,  sotto  voce,  to 
himself,  "  Saved  !  And  Eleanor  is  re 
venged.  Van  Squibber  may  have  failed, 
but  his  patent-leather  pumps  have  con 
quered." 


Ill 

IN    WHICH   A    MINCE-PIE   IS    RESPONSIBLE 
FOR    A    REMARKABLE   COINCIDENCE 

WHEN  Mr.  Snobbe  sat  down  after  the 
narration  of  his  story,  there  was  a  thun 
derous  outburst  of  applause.  It  was  evi 
dent  that  the  exciting  narrative  had  pleased 
his  fellow-diners  very  much — as,  indeed, 
it  was  proper  that  it  should,  since  it  dealt 
in  a  veiled  sort  of  way  with  charac 
ters  for  whom  all  right-minded  persons 
have  not  only  a  deep-seated  admiration, 
but  a  feeling  of  affection  as  well.  They 
had,  one  and  all,  in  common  with  the  un 
affected  portion  of  the  reading  commu 
nity,  a  liking  for  the  wholesome  and  clean 
humor  of  Mr.  Van  Bibber,  and  the  fact 
that  Snobbe's  story  suggested  a  certain 
'44 


A   REMARKABLE   COINCIDENCE 

original,  even  in  a  weak  sort  of  fashion, 
made  them  like  it  in  spite  of  its  short 
comings. 

"  Good  work,"  cried  Hudson  Rivers. 
"  Of  course  it's  only  gas  in  comparison 
with  the  sun,  but  it  gives  light,  and  we 
like  it." 

"And  it's  wholly  original,  too,  even 
though  an  imitation  in  manner.  The  real 
Van  Bibber  never  failed  in  anything  he 
undertook,"  said  Tenafly  Paterson.  "  Fve 
often  wished  he  might  have,  just  once — 
it  would  have  made  him  seem  more  human 
— and  for  that  reason  I  think  Tom  is  en 
titled  to  praise." 

"  I  don't  know  about  that,"  observed 
Monty  St.  Vincent.  "  Tom  hadn't  any 
thing  to  do  with  it — it  was  the  dinner. 
Honor  to  whom  honor  is  due,  say  I.  Praise 
the  cook,  or  the  caterer." 

"  That's  the  truth,"  put  in  Billie  Jones. 
"  Fact  is,  when  this  book  of  ours  comes 
out,  I  think,  instead  of  putting  our  names 
on  the  title-page  as  authors,  the  thing  to 
do  is  to  print  the  menu." 
45 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

"  You  miss  the  point  of  this  associa 
tion,"  interjected  Snobbe.  ' '  We  haven't 
banded  ourselves  together  to  immortalize 
a  Welsh  rabbit  or  a  mince-pie — nay,  nor 
even  a  ruddy  duck.  It's  our  own  glory 
we're  after." 

"  That's  it,"  cried  Monty  St.  Vincent— 
"  that's  the  beauty  of  it.  The  scheme 
works  two  ways.  If  the  stuff  is  good  and 
there  is  glory  in  it,  we'll  have  the  glory ; 
but  if  it's  bad,  we'll  blame  the  dinner. 
That's  what  I  like  about  it." 

"  It's  a  valuable  plan  from  that  point 
of  view,"  said  the  presiding  officer.  "  And 
now,  if  the  gentleman  who  secured  the 
ball  numbered  two  will  make  himself 
known,  we  will  proceed." 

Hudson  Rivers  rose  up.  "  I  have  num 
ber  two,"  he  said,  "  but  I  have  nothing 
to  relate.  The  coffee  I  drank  kept  me 
awake  all  night,  and  when  I  finally  slept, 
along  about  six  o'clock  next  morning,  it 
was  one  of  those  sweet,  dreamless  sleeps 
that  we  all  love  so  much.  I  must  there 
fore  ask  to  be  excused." 
46 


WHIT   A   POME   ABOUT   A   KID 


A    REMARKABLE   COINCIDENCE 

"  But  how  shall  you  be  represented  in 
the  book  ?"  asked  Mr.  Harry  Snobbe. 

"  He  can  do  the  table  of  contents/' sug 
gested  St.  Vincent. 

"  Or  the  fly-leaves,"  said  Tenafly  Pat- 
erson. 

"No,"  said  Huddy ;  "I  shall  ask  that 
the  pages  I  should  have  filled  be  left  blank. 
There  is  nothing  helps  a  book  so  much  as 
the  leaving  of  something  to  the  reader's 
imagination.  I  heard  a  great  critic  say  so 
once.  He  said  that  was  the  strong  point 
of  the  French  writers,  and  he  added  that 
Stockton's  Lady  or  the  Tiger  took  hold  be 
cause  Stockton  didn't  insist  on  telling 
everything." 

"  It's  a  good  idea,"  said  Mr.  Jones.  "  I 
don't  know  but  that  if  those  pages  are  left 
blank  they'll  be  the  most  interesting  in 
the  book." 

Mr.  Rivers  sat  down  with  a  smile  of 
conscious  pride,  whereupon  Mr.  Tenafly 
Paterson  rose  up. 

"As  I  hold  the  number  three  ball,  I 
will  give  you  the  fruits  of  my  dinner.  1 
D  4U 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

attribute  the  work  which  I  am  about  to 
present  to  you  to  the  mince-pie.  Person 
ally,  I  am  a  great  admirer  of  certain  latter- 
day  poets  who  deal  with  the  woes  and  joys 
of  more  or  less  commonplace  persons.  I 
myself  would  rather  read  a  sonnet  to  a 
snow-shovel  than  an  ode  to  the  moon, 
but  in  my  dream  I  seem  to  have  con 
ceived  a  violent  hatred  for  authors  of 
homely  verse,  as  you  will  note  when  I 
have  finished  reading  my  dream-poem 
called  'Retribution.'" 

"  G-reat  Scott  I"  murmured  Billie  Jones, 
with  a  deep-drawn  sigh.  "Poetry!  From 
Tenafly  Paterson !  Of  all  the  afflictions  of 
man,  Job  could  have  known  no  worse." 

"The  poem  reads  as  follows,"  contin 
ued  Paterson,  ignoring  the  chairman's  ill- 
timed  remark: 

RETRIBUTION 

Writ  a  pome  about  a  kid. 
Finest  one  I  ever  did. 

Heaped  it  full  o'  sentiment — 
Very  best  I  could  invent. 
50 


A    REMARKABLE    COINCIDENCE 

Talked  about  his  little  toys  ; 
How  he  played  with  other  boys  ; 

How  the  beasts  an'  birdies  all 
Come  when  little  Jaraie'd  call. 

'N'  'eii  I  took  that  little  lad, 
Gave  him  fever,  mighty  bad. 

'N'  'en  it  sorter  pleased  my  whim 
To  have  him  die  and  bury  him. 

It  got  printed,  too,  it  did 
That  small  pome  about  the  kid, 

In  a  paper  in  the  AVest ; 
Put  ten  dollars  in  my  vest. 

Every  pa  an'  ma  about 

Cried  like  mighty— cried  right  out. 

I  jess  took  each  grandma's  heart, 
Lammed  and  bruised  it,  made  it  smart  ; 

'N'  everybody  said  o'  me, 
"  Finest  pote  we  ever  see," 

'Cept  one  beggar,  he  got  mad. 
Got  worst  lickin'  ever  had  ; 
53 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

Got  my  head  atween  his  fists, 
Called  me  "  Prince  o'  anarchists." 

Clipped  me  one  behind  my  ear — 
Laid  me  up  for  'most  a  year. 

'"Cause,"  he  said,  "my  poetry 
'D  made  his  wife  an'  mother  cry ; 

" 'Twarn't  no  poet's  bizness  to 
Make  the  wimmin  all  boo-hoo." 

'N'  'at  is  why  to-day,  by  Jings  ! 
1  don't  fool  with  hearts  an'  things. 

I  don't  care  how  high  the  bids, 

I've  stopped  scribblin'  'bout  dead   kids  ; 

'R  if  I  haven't,  kinder  sorter 
Think  'at  maybe  p'r'aps  I'd  oughter. 


The  lines  were  received  with  hearty  ap 
preciation  by  all  save  Dobbs  Ferry,  who 
looked  a  trifle  gloomy. 

"It  is  a  strange  thing/'  said  the  latter, 
"but  that  mince-pie  affected  me  in  pre 
cisely  the  same  way,  as  you  will  see  for 
54 


"IT   FILLED   ME    WITH   DISMAY  " 


A    REMARKABLE    COINCIDENCE 

yourselves  when  I  read  my  contribution, 
which,  holding  ball  number  four  as  I  do, 
I  will  proceed  to  give  you." 

Mr.  Ferry  then  read  the  following  poem, 
which  certainly  did  seem  to  indicate  that 
the  man  who  prepared  the  fatal  pie  had 
certain  literary  ideas  which  he  mixed  in 
with  other  ingredients  : 

I  bought  a  book  of  verse  the  other  day, 
And  when  I  read,  it  filled  me  with  dismay. 

I  wanted  it  to  take  home  to  my  wife, 
To  bring  a  bit  of  joy  into  her  life ; 

And  I'd  been  told  the  author  of  those  pomes 
Was  called  the  laureate  of  simple  homes. 

But,  Jove  !  I  read,  and  found  it  full  of  rhyme 
That  kept  my  eyes  a-filling  all  the  time. 

One  told  about  a  pretty  little  miss 
Whose  father  had  denied  a  simple  kiss, 

And  as  she  left,  unhappy,  full  of  cares, 
She  fell  and  broke  her  neck  upon  the  stairs. 
5? 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

And  then  he  wrote  a  lot  of  tearful  lines 

Of  children  who  had  trouble  with  their  spines ; 

And  'stead  of  joys,  he  penned  so  many  woes 
I  sought  him  out  and  gave  him  curvature  'f  the 
nose  ; 

And  all  the  nation,  witnessing  his  plight, 
Did  crown  me  King,  and  cry,   "  It  served  him 
right." 

"A  remarkable  coincidence/'  said 
Thomas  Snobbe.  "In  fact,  the  coin 
cidence  is  rather  more  remarkable  than 
the  poetry/' 

"It  certainly  is,"  said  Billie  Jones; 
"  but  what  a  wonderfully  suggestive  pie, 
considering  that  it  was  a  mince !" 

After  which  dictum  the  presiding  officer 
called  upon  the  holder  of  the  fifth  ball, 
who  turned  out  to  be  none  other  than 
Bedford  Parke,  who  blushingly  rose  up 
and  delivered  himself  of  what  he  called 
"  The  Overcoat,  a  Magazine  Farce/' 


IV 

BEING   THE    CONTRIBUTION   OF    MR.    BED 
FORD    PARKE 

THE   OVERCOAT 

A   FARCE.       IN   TWO   SCENES 

SCENE  FIRST 
Time :  MORNING  AT  BOSTON 

Mrs.  Robert  Edwards.  "  I  think  it  will 
rain  to-day,  but  there  is  no  need  to  worry 
about  that.  Robert  has  his  umbrella  and 
his  mackintosh,  and  I  don't  think  he  is 
idiotic  enough  to  lend  both  of  them.  If 
he  does,  he'll  get  wet,  that's  all."  Mrs. 
Edwards  is  speaking  to  herself  in  the  sew 
ing-room  of  the  apartment  occupied  by 
herself  and  her  husband  in  the  Hotel 
59 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

Hammingbell  at  Boston.  It  is  not  a  large 
room,  but  cosey.  A  frieze  one  foot  deep 
runs  about  the  ceiling,  and  there  is  a 
carpet  on  the  floor.  Three  pins  are  seen 
scattered  about  the  room,  in  one  corner 
of  which  is  a  cane-bottomed  chair  holding 
across  its  back  two  black  vests  and  a  cut 
away  coat.  Mrs.  Edwards  sits  before  a 
Wilcox  &  Wilson  sewing-machine  sew 
ing  a  button  on  a  light  spring  overcoat. 
The  overcoat  has  one  outside  and  three 
inside  pockets,  and  is  single-breasted.  "It 
is  curious,"  Mrs.  Edwards  continues, 
"  what  men  will  do  with  umbrellas  and 
mackintoshes  on  a  rainy  day.  They  lend 
them  here  and  there,  and  the  worst  part 
of  it  is  they  never  remember  where."  A 
knock  is  heard  at  the  door.  "  Who's 
there  ?" 

Voice  (without).   "  Me." 

Mrs.  Robert  Edwards  (with  a  nervous 
shudder).  "Come  in."  Enter  Mary  the 
house-maid.  She  is  becomingly  attired  in 
blue  alpaca,  with  green  ribbons  and  puffed 
sleeves.  She  holds  a  feather  duster  in 
60 


THE    OVERCOAT 

her  right  hand,  and  in  her  left  is  a  jar  of 
Royal  Worcester.    "  Mary/'  Mrs.  Edwards 
says,  severely,  "  where  are  we  at  ?" 
Mary  (meekly).  "Boston,  ma'am." 
Mrs.  Robert  Edwards.   "  South  Boston 
or  Boston  proper  ?" 

Mary.  "Boston  proper,  ma'am." 
Mrs.  Robert  Edwards.  "  Then  when  I 
say  <  Who's  there  ?'  don't  say  '  Me.'  That 
manner  of  speaking  may  do  at  New  York, 
Brooklyn,  South  Boston,  or  Congress,  but 
at  Boston  proper  it  is  extremely  gauche. 
'I*  is  the  word." 

Mary.  "Yes,  ma'am;  but  you  know, 
ma'am,  I  don't  pretend  to  be  literary, 
ma'am,  and  so  these  little  points  baffles  I 
very  often."  Mrs.  Edwards  sighs,  and, 
walking  over  to  the  window,  looks  out 
upon  the  trolley  -  cars  for  ten  minutes  ; 
then,  picking  up  one  of  the  pins  from  the 
floor  and  putting  it  in  a  pink  silk  pin 
cushion  which  stands  next  to  an  alarm- 
clock  on  the  mantel-piece,  a  marble  affair 
with  plain  caryatids  and  a  brass  fender 
around  the  hearth,  she  resumes  her  seat 

63 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

before  the  sewing-machine,  and  threads  a 
needle.     Then — 

Mrs.  Robert  Edwards.  "Well,  Mary, 
what  do  you  want  ?" 

Mary.  "  Please,  Mrs.  Edwards,  the 
butcher  is  came,  and  he  says  they  have 
some  very  fine  perairie-chickens  to-day." 

Mrs.  Robert  Edwards.  "  We  don't  want 
any  prairie-chickens.  The  prairies  are  so 
very  vulgar.  Tell  him  never  to  suggest 
such  a  thing  again.  Have  we  any  pota 
toes  in  the  house  ?" 

Mary.  "There's  three  left,  ma'am,  and 
two  slices  of  cold  roast  beef." 

Mrs.  Robert  Edwards.  "Then  tell  him 
to  bring  five  more  potatoes,  a  steak,  and — 
Was  all  the  pickled  salmon  eaten  ?" 

Mary.   "  All  but  the  can,  ma'am." 

Mrs.  Robert  Edwards.  "  Well— Mr.  Ed 
wards  is  very  fond  of  fish.  Tell  him  to 
bring  two  boxes  of  sardines  and  a  bottle 
of  anchovy  paste." 

Mary.   "Very  well,  Mrs.  Edwards." 

Mrs.    Robert   Edwards.   "And  —  ah - 
Mary,   tell  him  to   bring   some   Brussels 
64 


MARY 


THE    OVERCOAT 

sprouts  for  breakfast.  What  are  yon  do 
ing  with  that  Worcester  vase  ?" 

Mary.  "  I  was  takin'  it  to  cook,  ma'am. 
Sure  she  broke  the  bean-pot  this  mornin', 
and  she  wanted  somethin'  to  cook  the 
beans  in." 

Mrs.  Robert  Edwards.  "Oh,  I  see. 
Well,  take  good  care  of  it,  Mary.  It's  a 
rare  piece.  In  fact,  I  think  you'd  better 
leave  that  here  and  remove  the  rubber 
plant  from  the  jardiniere,  and  let  Nora 
cook  the  beans  in  that.  Times  are  a  little 
too  hard  to  cook  beans  in  Royal  Worces 
ter." 

Mary.  "  Very  well,  ma'am."  Mary  goes 
out  through  the  door.  Mrs.  Edwards  re 
sumes  her  sewing.  Fifteen  minutes  elapse, 
interrupted  only  by  the  ticking  of  the 
alarm-clock  and  the  occasional  ringing  of 
the  bell  on  passing  trolley-cars.  "  If  it 
does  rain,"  Mrs.  Edwards  says  at  last, 
with  an  anxious  glance  through  the  win 
dow,  "  I  suppose  Robert  won't  care  about 
going  to  see  the  pantomime  to-night.  It 
will  be  too  bad  if  we  don't  go,  for  this  is 
67 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

the  last  night  of  the  season,  and  I've  been 
very  anxious  to  renew  my  acquaintance 
with  'Humpty  Dumpty.'  It  is  so  very 
dramatic,  and  I  do  so  like  dramatic 
things.  Even  when  they  happen  in  my 
own  life  I  like  dramatic  things.  I'll 
never  forget  how  1  enjoyed  the  thrill 
that  came  over  me,  even  in  my  terror,  that 
night  last  winter  when  the  trolley  -  car 
broke  down  in  front  of  this  house ;  and 
last  summer,  too,  when  the  oar-lock  broke 
in  our  row-boat  thirty -three  feet  from 
shore  ;  that  was  a  situation  that  I  enjoyed 
in  spite  of  its  peril.  How  people  can  say 
that  life  is  humdrum,  I  can't  see.  Excit 
ing  things,  real  third -act  situations,  cli 
maxes  I  might  even  call  them,  are  always 
happening  in  my  life,  and  yet  some  novel 
ists  pretend  that  life  is  humdrum  just  to 
excuse  their  books  for  being  humdrum. 
Fd  just  like  to  show  these  apostles  of  real 
ism  the  diary  I  could  have  kept  if  I  had 
wanted  to.  Beginning  with  the  fall  my 
brother  George  had  from  the  hay-wagon, 
back  in  1876,  running  down  through  my 
68 


THE    OVERCOAT 

first  meeting  with  Robert,  which  was  ro 
mantic  enough— he  paid  my  car-fare  in 
from  Brookline  the  day  I  lost  my  pocket- 
boot —  even  to  yesterday,  when  an  entire 
stranger  called  me  np  on  the  telephone, 
my  life  has  fairly  bubbled  with  dramatic 
situations  that  would  take  the  humdrum 
theory  and  utterly  annihilate  it."  As  Mrs. 
Edwards  is  speaking  she  is  also  sewing  the 
button  already  alluded  to  on  Mr.  Edwards's 
coat  as  described.  "  There,"  taking  the  last 
stitch  in  the  coat,  "  that's  done,  and  now 
I  can  go  and  get  ready  for  luncheon."  She 
folds  up  the  coat,  glances  at  the  clock, 
and  goes  out.  A  half-hour  elapses.  The 
silence  is  broken  only  by  occasional  noises 
from  the  street,  the  rattling  of  the  wheels 
of  a  herdic  over  the  pavement,  the  voices 
of  newsboys,  and  an  occasional  straw 
berry-vender's  cry.  At  the  end  of  the 
half-hour  the  alarm-clock  goes  off  and  the 
curtain  falls. 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 


SCENE  SECOND 
Time  :  EVENING  AT  BOSTON 

The  scene  is  laid  in  the  drawing-room 
of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Robert  Edwards.  Mrs. 
Edwards  is  discovered  reading  Pendennis, 
and  seems  in  imminent  danger  of  going  to 
sleep  over  it.  Mr.  Edwards  is  stretched 
out  upon  the  sofa,  quite  asleep,  with  Ivan- 
hoe  lying  open  upon  his  chest.  Twenty- 
five  minutes  elapse,  when  the  door-bell 
rings. 

Mr.  Edwards  (droivsily}.  "Let  me  off 
at  the  next  corner,  conductor." 

Mrs.  Edwards.  "Why,  Robert  —  what 
nonsense  you  are  talking  I" 

Mr.  Edwards  (rubbing  Ms  eyes  and  sit- 
tingup).  "Eh?  What?  Nonsense?  I 
talk  nonsense  ?  Really,  my  dear,  that  is 
a  serious  charge  to  bring  against  one  of 
the  leading  characters  in  a  magazine  farce. 
Wit,  perhaps,  I  may  indulge  in,  but  non 
sense,  never !" 

Mrs.  Edwards.  "That  is  precisely  what 
70 


EDWARDS  REBELS 


THE    OVERCOAT 

I  complain  about.  The  idea  of  a  well- 
established  personage  like  yourself  lying 
off  on  a  sofa  in  his  own  apartment  and 
asking  a  conductor  to  let  him  off  at  the 
next  corner  !  It's — " 

Mr.  Edwards.  "  I  didn't  do  anything 
of  the  sort." 

Mrs.  Edwards.  "  You  did,  too,,  Robert 
Edwards.  And  I  can  prove  it.  If  you 
will  read  back  to  the  opening  lines  of  this 
scene  you  will  find  that  I  have  spoken  the 
truth — unless  you  forgot  your  lines.  If 
you  admit  that,  I  have  nothing  to  say, 
but  I  will  add  that  if  you  are  going  to  for 
get  lines  that  give  the  key-note  of  the 
whole  situation,  you've  got  no  business  in 
a  farce.  You'll  make  the  whole  thing  fall 
flat  some  day,  and  then  you  will  be  dis 
charged." 

Mr.  Edwards.  "  Well,  I  wish  I  might 
be  discharged  ;  I'm  tired  of  the  whole 
business.  Anybody  'd  take  me  for  an 
idiot,  the  way  I  have  to  go  on.  Every  bit 
of  fun  there  is  to  be  had  in  these  farces  is 
based  upon  some  predicament  into  which 
73 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

my  idiocy  or  yours  gets  me.  Are  we 
idiots  ?  I  ask  you  that.  Are  we  ?  You 
may  be,  but,  Mrs.  Edwards,  I  am  not.  The 
idea  of  my  falling  asleep  over  Ivanhoe! 
Would  I  do  that  if  I  had  my  way  ?  Well, 
I  guess  not !  Would  I  even  dare  to  say 
'  I  guess  not '  in  a  magazine  farce  ?  Again, 
I  guess  not.  I'm  going  to  write  to  the 
editor  this  very  night,  and  resign  my  situ 
ation.  I  want  to  be  me.  I  don't  want 
to  be  what  some  author  thinks  I  ought  to 
be.  Do  you  know  what  I  think  ?" 

Mrs.  Edwards (warningly).  "Take  care, 
Robert.  Take  care.  You  aren't  employed 
to  think." 

Mr.  Edwards.  "Precisely.  That's  what 
makes  me  so  immortally  mad.  The  author 
doesn't  give  me  time  to  think.  I  could 
think  real  thoughts  if  he'd  let  me,  but 
then  !  The  curtain  wouldn't  stay  up  half 
a  second  if  I  did  that ;  and  where  would 
the  farce  be  ?  The  audience  would  go 
home  tired,  because  they  wouldn't  get 
their  nap  if  the  curtain  was  down.  It's 
hard  luck  ;  and  as  for  me,  I  wouldn't  keep 
74 


THE    OVERCOAT 

the  position  a  minute  if  I  could  get  any 
thing  else  to  do.  Nobody  'd  give  me  work, 
now  that  I've  been  made  out  to  be  such 
a  confounded  jackass.  But  let's  talk  of 
other  things." 

Mrs.  Edwards.  "I'd  love  to,  Rob 
ert — but  we  can't.  There  are  no  other 
things  in  the  farce.  The  Billises  are 
coming." 

Mr.  Edwards.  "  Hang  the  Billises  ! 
Can't  we  ever  have  an  evening  to  our 
selves  ?" 

Mrs.  Edwards.  "  How  you  do  talk  ! 
How  can  we  ?  There's  got  to  be  some 
action  in  the  farce,  and  it's  the  Billis 
family  that  draws  out  our  peculiarities." 

Mr.  Edwards.  "Well,  I'm  going  out, 
and  you  can  receive  the  Billises,  and  if  it's 
necessary  for  me  to  say  anything  to  give 
go  to  the  play,  you  can  say  it.  I  make  you 
my  proxy." 

Mrs.  Edwards.  "  It  can't  be  done,  Rob 
ert.  They  are  here.  The  bell  rang  ten 
minutes  ago,  and  they  ought  to  have  got 
in  here  five  minutes  since.  You  can't  go 
75 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

out  without  meeting  them  in  the  wings — 
I  mean  the  hallway." 
Mr.  Edwards.   "Lost  I" 

Enter  MR.  and  MRS.  BILLIS. 

Billis.  "Ah,  Edwards!  Howdy  do? 
Knew  you  were  home.  Saw  light  in— 

Mrs.  Billis.  "Don't  rattle  on  so,  my 
dear.  Speak  more  slowly,  or  the  farce  will 
be  over  before  nine." 

Billis.  "Fve  got  to  say  my  lines,  and 
I'm  going  to  say  them  my  way.  Ah, 
Edwards  !  Howdy  do  ?  Knew  you  were 
home.  Saw  light  in  window.  Knew  your 
economical  spirit.  Said  to  myself  must  be 
home,  else  why  gas  ?  He  doesn't  burn 
gas  when  he's  out.  Wake  up — " 

Mr.  Edwards.  "I'm  not  asleep.  Fact 
is,  I  am  going  out." 

Mrs.  Billis.   "Out?" 

Mrs.  Edwards.   "Robert!" 

Mr.  Edwards.  "That's  what  I  said- 
out.  0-u-t." 

Billis.  "Not  bad  idea.  Go  with  you. 
Where  to  ?" 

76 


THE    OVERCOAT 

Mr.  Edwards.  "  Any  where  —  to  find  a 
tragedy  and  take  part  in  it.  I'm  done 
farcing,  my  boy." 

Billis  (slapping  Edwards  on  fiaclc). 
(s  Rah  !  my  position  exactly.  I'm  sick  of 
it  too.  Come  ahead.  I  know  that  fellow 
Whoyt — hell  take  us  in  and  give  us  a 
chance." 

Mrs.  Billis.   "Fve  been  afraid  of  this." 

Mrs.  Edwards.  "  Robert,  consider  your 
family." 

Mr.  Edwards.  "I  have;  and  if  I m  to 
die  respected  and  honored,  if  my  family 
is  to  have  any  regard  for  my  memory, 
I've  got  to  get  out  of  farcing.  That's  all. 
Did  you  sew  the  button  on  my  over 
coat  ?" 

Mrs.  Edwards.  "  I  did.  I'll  go  get  it." 
She  goes  out.  Mrs.  Billis  throws  herself 
sobbing  on  sofa.  Billis  dances  a  jig.  Forty 
minutes  elapse,  during  which  Billis's  dance 
may  be  encored.  Enter  Mrs.  Edwards, 
triumphantly,  with  overcoat. 

Mrs.  Edwards.  "There's  your  over 
coat." 

77 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

Mr.  Edwards.  "But — but  the  button 
isn't  sewed  on.  I  can't  go  out  in  this." 

Mrs.  Edwards.  "  I  knew  it,  Robert.  I 
sewed  the  button  on  the  wrong  coat." 
Billis  and  Robert  fall  in  a  faint.  Mrs. 
Billis  rises  and  smiles,  grasping  Mrs.  Ed- 
wards's  hand  fervently. 

Mrs.  Billis.   "  Noble  woman  !" 

Mrs.  Edwards.  "Yes;  I've  saved  the 
farce." 

Mrs.  Billis.  "  You  have.  For,  in  spite 
of  these — these  strikers  —  these  theatric 
Debses,  you — you  got  in  the  point !  The 
button  was  sewed  on  the  wrong  overcoat!" 

CURTAIN". 

"When  the  farce  was  finished,"  said 
Mr.  Parke,  "and  the  applause  which 
greeted  the  fall  of  the  curtain  had  sub 
sided,  I  dreamed  also  the  following  au 
thor's  note  :  (  The  elapses '  in  this  farce 
may  seem  rather  long,  but  the  reader  must 
remember  that  it  is  the  author's  inten 
tion  that  his  farce,  if  acted,  should  last 
78 


THE    OVERCOAT 

throughout  a  whole  evening.  If  it  were 
not  for  the  elapses  the  acting  time  would 
be  scarcely  longer  than  twenty  minutes, 
instead  of  two  hours  and  a  half." 

"I  mention  this,"  Mr.  Parke  added, 
"not  only  in  justification  of  myself,  but 
also  as  a  possible  explanation  of  certain 
shortcomings  in  the  work  of  the  original 
master.  Sometimes  the  action  may  seem 
to  drag  a  trifle,  but  that  is  not  the  fault 
of  the  author,  but  of  life  itself.  To  be  real 
one  must  be  true,  and  truth  is  not  to  be 
governed  by  him  who  holds  the  pen." 

Mr.  Parke's  explanation  having  been  re 
ceived  in  a  proper  and  appreciative  spirit 
by  his  fellow-Dreamers,  Mr.  Jones  an 
nounced  that  Mr.  Monty  St.  Vincent  was 
the  holder  of  the  sixth  ball,  whereupon 
Mr.  St.  Vincent  arose  and  delivered  him 
self  as  follows  : 


V 

THE   SALVATION   OF   FINDLAYSON 

the  story  told  by  the  holder  of  the  sixth  ball, 
Mr.  Monti/  St.  Vincent. 

A  DONKEY  ENGINE,  next  to  a  Sopho 
more  at  a  football  match  that  is  going  his 
way,  is  the  noisiest  thing  man  ever  made, 
and  No.  4-11-44,  who  travelled  first-class  on 
the  American  liner  New  York,  was  not  in 
clined  to  let  anybody  forget  the  fact. 
He  held  a  commanding  position  on  the 
roof  of  the  deck  state-room  No.  10,  just 
aft  of  the  forecastle  stringer  No.  3,  and 
over  the  main  jib-stay  boom  No.  6J,  that 
held  the  rudder-chains  in  place.  All  the 
little  Taffrails  and  Swashbucklers  looked 
up  to  him,  and  the  Capstan  loved  him  like 
a  brother,  for  he  very  often  helped  the 
80 


SALVATION    OF    FINDLAYSON 

Capstan  to  bring  the  Anchor  aboard,  when 
otherwise  that  dissipated  bit  of  iron  would 
have  staid  out  all  night.  The  Port  Tar 
paulins  insisted  that  the  Donkey  Engine 
was  the  greatest  humorist  that  ever  lived, 
although  the  Life  Preservers  hanging  by 
the  rail  did  not  like  him  at  all,  because  he 
once  said  they  were  Irish — "  Cork  all 
through,"  said  he.  Even  the  Rivets  that 
held  the  Top  Gallant  Bilges  together  used 
to  strain  their  eyes  to  see  the  points  of 
the  Donkey  Engine's  jokes,  and  the  third 
Deputy-assistant  Piston  Rod,  No.  683,  in 
the  hatchway  stoke-hole,  used  to  pound 
the  cylinders  almost  to  pieces  trying  to 
encore  the  Donkey  Engine's  comic  songs. 

The  Main  Mast  used  to  say  that  the 
Donkey  Engine  was  as  bright  as  the  Star 
board  Lights,  and  the  Smoke  Stack  is 
said  to  have  told  the  Safety  Valve  that 
he'd  rather  give  up  smoking  than  lose 
the  constant  flow  of  wit  the  Donkey  En 
gine  was  always  giving  forth. 

Eindlayson  discovered  all  this.  After 
his  Bridge  had  gone  safely  through  that 
F  81 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

terrible  ordeal  when  the  Ganges  rose  and 
struck  for  higher  tides,  Findlayson  col 
lapsed.  The  Bridge —  But  that  is  an 
other  story.  This  is  this  one,  and  there 
is  little  profit  in  telling  two  stories  at  once, 
especially  in  a  day  when  one  can  get  the 
two  stories  printed  separately  in  the  sev 
eral  magazines  for  which  one  writes  exclu 
sively. 

After  the  ordeal  of  the  Kashi  Bridge, 
Findlayson,  as  I  have  said,  collapsed,  and 
it  is  no  wonder,  as  you  will  see  for  your 
self  when  you  read  that  other  story.  As 
the  Main  Girder  of  the  Bridge  itself  wrote 
later  to  the  Suspension  Cables  of  the  Brook 
lyn  Bridge,  "It's  a  wonder  to  me  that  the 
Sahib  didn't  have  the  Baslii-bazouks  earlier 
in  the  game.  He  suffered  a  terrible  strain 
that  night." 

To  which  the  Cables  of  the  Brooklyn 
Bridge  wittily  replied  that  while  they 
sympathized  with  Findlayson,  they  didn't 
believe  he  really  knew  what  strain  was. 
"Wait  until  he  has  five  lines  of  trolley- 
cars  running  over  him  all  day  and  night. 


SALVATION    OF    FINDLAYSON 

That  is  a  strain  !  He'd  be  worse  cut  up 
than  ever  if  he  had  that.  And  yet  we 
thrive  under  it.  After  all,  for  solid  health, 
it's  better  to  be  a  Bridge  than  a  Man. 
When  are  you  coming  across  ?" 

Now  Findlayson  might  have  collapsed 
a  dozen  times  before  the  Government 
would  have  cared  enough  to  give  him  the 
vacation  he  needed.  Not  that  Govern 
ment  is  callous,  like  an  elephant,  but  be 
cause  it  is  conducted,  as  a  witty  Cobra 
once  remarked  in  the  jungle  as  he  fasci 
nated  a  Tigress,  by  a  lot  of  Red  Tapirs. 
Findlayson  put  in  an  application  for  a  six 
months'  vacation,  but  by  the  time  the 
necessary  consent  had  reached  him  the 
six  months  were  up.  Everybody  remem 
bers  the  tale  of  Dorkins  of  the  Welsh 
Fusileers  and  his  appointment  to  the  De 
partment  of  the  Poloese,  how  his  term  of 
office  was  to  be  six  years,  and  how  by  the 
time  his  credentials  reached  him  his  term 
of  office  had  expired.  So  with  Findlay 
son.  On  the  very  date  of  the  expiration 
of  his  desired  leave  he  received  permission 
83 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

to  go,  and  of  course  could  not  then  do 
so,  because  it  was  too  late.  Fortunately 
for  Findlayson,  however,  the  Viceroy  him 
self  happened  to  be  passing  through,  and 
Findla}rson  entertained  him  at  a  luncheon 
on  the  Bridge.  By  some  curious  mistake, 
when  the  nuts  and  raisins  were  passed, 
Findlayson  had  provided  a  plateful  of 
steel  nuts,  designed  to  hold  rivets  in 
place,  instead  of  the  usual  assortment  of 
almonds  and  JiiM-ree. 

"  This  man  needs  a  rest/'  said  the  Vice 
roy,  as  he  broke  his  front  tooth  trying  to 
crack  one  of  the  steel  nuts,  and  he  im 
mediately  extended  Findlayson's  leave  to 
twenty  years  without  pay,  for  which  Find 
layson  was  very  grateful. 

"  What  is  the  matter  with  the  man  ?" 
asked  the  Viceroy,  as  he  drove  to  the  sta 
tion  with  the  practising  Jinrikshaw  of  the 
place. 

"  It7s  my  professional  opinion,"  replied 

the  Jinrikshaw,  "  that   the   Sahib  has  a 

bad  attack   of   melancholia.      He   hasn't 

laughed  for   six   months.     If    we    could 

84 


THE  VICEROY   EXAMINES  HIS  RUINED  SMILE 


SALVATION    OF    FINDLAYSON 

only  get  him  to  laugh,  I  think  he'd  re 
cover." 

"Then  it  was  not  in  a  jocular  spirit 
that  he  ruined  my  teeth  with  those  nuts  ?" 
demanded  the  Viceroy,  taking  a  small 
mirror  out  of  his  pocket  and  gazing  rue 
fully  on  his  ruined  smile. 

"No,  your  most  Excellent  Excellency," 
replied  the  Jinrikshaw.  "The  fact  that 
he  ate  five  of  them  himself  shows  that  it 
was  an  error,  not  a  jest." 

It  was  thus  that  Findlayson  got  his  va 
cation,  and  even  to  this  day  the  Kaska- 
looloo  folk  are  laughing  over  his  error 
more  heartily  than  they  ever  laughed 
over  a  joke. 

A  month  after  leaving  his  post  Find 
layson  reached  London,  where  he  was 
placed  under  the  care  of  the  most  famous 
physicians.  They  did  everything  they 
could  to  make  him  laugh,  without  suc 
cess.  Punch  was  furnished,  and  he  read 
it  through  day  after  day,  and  burst  into 
hysterical  weeping.  They  took  him  to 
the  theatres,  and  he  never  even  smiled. 
87 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLtJB 

They  secured  a  front  seat  in  the  House  of 
Commons  for  him  during  important  de 
bates,  and  he  merely  sobbed.  They  took 
him  to  the  Army  and  Navy  Stores,  and  he 
shivered  with  fear.  Even  Beerbohm  Tree 
as  Lady  Macbeth,  or  whatever  role  it  was 
he  was  playing  at  the  time,  failed  to  coax 
the  old  -  time  dimple  to  his  cheek.  His 
friends  began  to  whisper  among  them 
selves  that  "old  Findlayson  was  done 
for,"  when  Berkeley  Hauksbee,  who  "had 
been  with  him  in  the  Soudan,  suggested  a 
voyage  to  the  United  States. 

"He'll  see  enough  there  to  laugh  at, 
or  I'm  an  unshod,  unbroken,  saw-backed, 
shark-eating  skate  I"  he  asserted,  and  as  a 
last  resource  Findlayson  was  packed,  bag 
and  baggage,  aboard  the  liner  New  York. 

The  first  three  days  out  Findlayson  was 
dead  to  the  world.  He  lay  like  a  fallen 
log  in  the  primeval  forest.  Stewards 
were  of  no  avail.  Even  the  repeated  calls 
of  the  doctor,  whose  apprehensions  were 
aroused,  could  not  restore  him  to  life. 

"They'll  be  sewin'  him  up  in  a  jute 
88 


SALVATION    OF    FINDLAYSON 

bag  and  droppin'  him  overboard  if  he 
doesn't  come  to  by  to-morrow,"  observed 
the  Water  Bottle  to  the  Soap  Dish,  with 
a  sympathetic  glance  at  the  prostrate 
Findlayson. 

"  He'll  be  seasicker  than  ever  if  they 
do/'  returned  the  Soap  Dish.  ' '  It's  a  long 
swim  from  here  to  Sandy  Hook." 

But  Findlayson  came  to  in  time  to 
avert  the  catastrophe,  and  took  several 
turns  up  and  down  the  deck.  He  played 
horse-billiards  with  an  English  curate, 
but  showed  no  sign  of  interest  or  amuse 
ment  even  at  the  curious  aspect  of  the 
ladies  who  lay  inert  in  the  steamer  chairs 
ranged  along  the  deck. 

"I'm  afraid  it's  hopeless,"  said  Peroo, 
his  valet,  shaking  his  head  sadly.  "  Un 
less  I  take  him  in  hand  myself."  And 
Peroo  was  seized  with  an  idea. 

"  I'll  do  it !"  he  cried. 

He  approached  Findlayson. 

"  The  Sahib  will  not  laugh,"  he  said. 
"He  will  not  smile  even.  He  has  not 
snickered  all  day.  Take  these,  then. 
91 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

They're  straight  opium,  but  there's  fun 
in  them." 

He  took  a  small  zinc  bait-box  from  his 
fishing-kit  and  handed  it  to  Findlayson, 
who.,  on  opening  it,  found  a  dozen  or  more 
brown  pellets.  Hastily  swallowing  six  of 
them,  the  sick  man  turned  over  in  his 
bunk  and  tried  to  go  to  sleep,  while  Peroo 
went  into  the  smoking-room  for  a  game 
of  Pok-Kali  with  a  party  of  Drummerz 
who  were  crossing  to  America. 

A  soft  yellow  haze  suffused  the  state 
room,  and  Findlayson,  nervously  starting 
to  his  feet  to  see  what  had  caused  it,  was 
surprised  to  find  himself  confronted  by  a 
grinning  row  of  Technicalities  ranged  in 
a  line  upon  the  sofa  under  the  port,  while 
seated  upon  his  steamer  trunk  was  the 
Donkey  Engine  4-11-44. 

"  Well,  here  we  are,"  said  the  Deck 
Beam,  addressing  the  Donkey  Engine. 
"  What  are  we  here  for  ?" 

"  That's  it,"  said  the  Capstan.  "  We've 
left  our  places  at  your  command.  Now, 
why  ?" 


THE  DONKEY   ENGINE   CALLS  ON    FINDLAYSON 


SALVATION    OF    FINDLAYSON 

"I  wanted  you  to  meet  my  friend 
Findlayson,"  said  the  Donkey  Engine. 
"  He's  a  good  fellow.  Findlayson,  let  me 
present  you  to  my  associates — Mr.  Cap 
stan,  Mr.  Findlayson.  And  that  gentle 
man  over  in  the  corner,  Mr.  Findlayson, 
is  the  Starboard  Upper  Deck  Stringer. 
Kivet,  come  over  here  and  meet  Mr. 
Findlayson.  The  Davits  will  be  here  in 
a  minute,  and  the  Centrifugal  Bilge  Pump 
will  drop  in  later." 

"  I'm  glad  to  meet  you  all,"  said  Find 
layson,  rather  dazed. 

"  Thought  you  would  be,"  returned  the 
Donkey  Engine.  "  That's  why  I  asked 
them  to  come  up." 

"  Do  you  mind  if  I  smoke  in  here  ?" 
said  the  Funnel. 

"Not  a  bit,"  said  Findlayson,  solemn 
ly.  "Let  me  offer  you  a  cigar." 

The  party  roared  at  this. 

"He   doesn't   smoke   cigars,   Fin,    old 

boy,"  said  the  Donkey  Engine.     "  Offer 

him  a  ton  of  coal  Perfectos  or  a  basket  of 

kindling  Invincibles  and  he'll   take  you 

95 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

up.     Old  Funnel  makes  a  cigarette  of  a 
cord  of  pine  logs,  you  know." 

"I  should  think  so  much  smoking 
would  be  bad  for  your  nerves,"  suggested 
Findlayson. 

"'Ain't  got  any/'  said  the  Funnel. 
"Fin  only  a  Flue,  you  know.  Every 
once  in  a  while  I  do  get  a  sooty  feeling 
inside,  but  beyond  that  I  don't  suffer  at 
all." 

"Where's  the  Keel  ?"  asked  the  Thrust 
Block,  taking  off  one  of  his  six  collars, 
which  hurt  his  neck. 

"He  can't  come  up  to-night,"  said  the 
Donkey  Engine,  with  a  sly  wink  at  Find 
layson,  who,  however,  failed  to  respond. 
"  The  Hold  is  feeling  a  little  rocky,  and 
the  Keel's  got  to  stay  down  and  steady 
him." 

Findlayson  looked  blankly  at  the  Don 
key  Engine.  As  an  Englishman  in  a  ner 
vously  disordered  state,  he  did  not  seem 
quite  able  to  appreciate  the  Donkey  En 
gine's  joke.  The  latter  sighed,  shook  his 
cylinder  a  trifle,  and  began  again. 
96 


SALVATION    OF    FINDLAYSON 

"Hear  about  the  Bow  Anchor's  row 
with  the  Captain  ?"  he  asked  the  Gar- 
board  Strake. 

"  No,"  replied  the  Strake.  "  Wouldn't 
he  bow  ?" 

"He'd  bow  all  right,"  said  the  Donkey 
Engine,  "but  he  wouldn't  ank.  Result 
is  he's  been  put  in  chains." 

"  Serves  him  right/7  said  the  Bilge 
Stringer,  filling  his  pipe  with  Findlay- 
son's  tooth-powder.  "Serves  him  right. 
He  ought  to  be  chucked  overboard." 

"True," said  the  Donkey  Engine.  "  An 
anchor  can't  be  made  to  ank  unless  you 
chuck  him  overboard." 

The  company  roared  at  this,  but  Find- 
layson  never  cracked  a  smile. 

"That  is  very  true,"  he  said.  "In 
fact,  how  could  an  anchor  ank,  as  you 
put  it,  without  being  lowered  into  the 
sea  ?" 

"It's  a  bad  case,"  observed  Bulwark 
Plate,  in  a  whisper,  to  the  Upper  Deck 
Plank. 

"It  floors  me,"  said  the  Plank.  "I 
G  97 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

don't  think  he'd  laugh  if  his  uncle  died 
and  left  him  a  million." 

"  Shut  up,"  said  the  Donkey  Engine. 
"  We've  got  to  do  it  or  bust.  Let's  try 
again." 

Then  he  added,  aloud, 

"Say,  Technicalities,  did  you  ever  hear 
that  riddle  of  the  Starboard  Coal  Bunk 
er's  ?" 

The  company  properly  had  not. 

"Well,  the  Starboard  Coal  Bunker  got 
it  off  at  Lady  Airshaft's  last  reception  at 
Binks's  Ship-yard  :  '  What's  the  difference 
between  a  man-o'-war  going  through  the 
Suez  Canal  under  tow  of  a  tug-boat  and  a 
boiler  with  a  capacity  of  6000  tons  of 
steam  loaded  to  7000  tons,  with  no  safety- 
valve,  in  charge  of  an  engineer  who  has  a 
certificate  from  Bellevue  Hospital  show 
ing  that  he  is  a  good  ambulance-driver, 
but  supports  a  widowed  mother  and  seven 
uncles  upon  no  income  to  speak  of,  all  of 
which  is  invested  in  Spanish  fours,  bought 
on  a  margin  of  two  per  cent,  in  a  Wall 
Street  bucket  -  shop  conducted  by  two 


SALVATION    OF    FINDLAYSON 

professional  card-players  from  Honolulu 
under  indictment  at  San  Francisco  for 
arson?'" 

"Tutt!"  said  the  Rudder.  "What  a 
chestnut !  I  was  brought  up  on  riddles 
of  that  kind.  They  can't  climb  a  tree." 

"Nope,"  said  the  Donkey  Engine. 
"  That's  not  the  answer." 

"  You  don't  know  it  yourself,"  suggest 
ed  the  Funnel. 

"  Nope,"  said  the  Donkey  Engine. 

"Well,  what  the  deuce  is  the  answer?" 
said  Findlayson,  irritably. 

"  Give  it  up — the  rest  of  you  ?"  cried 
the  Donkey  Engine. 

"  We  do,"  they  roared  in  chorus. 

"  Fm  surprised  at  you,"  said  the  Don 
key  Engine.  "It's  very  simple  indeed. 
The  man-o'-war  going  through  the  Suez 
Canal  under  tow  of  a  tug-boat  has  a  pull 
— and  the  other  hasn't,  don't  you  know — 
eh?" 

Findlayson  scratched  his  forehead. 

"  I  don't  see — "  he  began. 

"There  is  no  reason  why  you  should. 
99 


THE    DREAMERS:     A    CLUB 

You're  not  feeling  well/'  interrupted  the 
Donkey  Engine,  "  but  it's  a  good  riddle — 
eh?" 

"Quite  so,"  said  Findlayson. 

"  It's  long,  anyhow,"  said  the  Screw. 

"  Which  we  can't  say  for  to-day's  run- 
only  867  miles  ?"  suggested  the  Donkey 
Engine,  interrogatively. 

"  It's  long  enough,"  growled  the  Screw. 

"  It  certainly  is,  if  it  is  reckoned  in 
minutes,"  retorted  the  Donkey  Engine. 
"  I  never  knew  such  a  long  day." 

And  so  they  continued  in  an  honest 
and  technical  effort  to  restore  Findlayson. 
But  he  wouldn't  laugh,  and  finally  the 
Screw  and  the  Centrifugal  Bilge  Pump 
and  the  Stringers  and  the  other  well- 
meaning  Technicalities  rose  up  to  leave. 
Day  was  approaching,  and  all  were  needed 
at  their  various  posts. 

"Good-night — or  good-morning,  Find 
layson,"  said  the  Donkey  Engine.  "  We've 
had  a  very  pleasant  night.  I  am  only  sor 
ry,  however,  we  cannot  make  you  laugh." 

"I    never    laugh,"    said     Findlayson. 
100 


SALVATION    OF    FINDLAySON 

"But  tell  me,  old  chap,  are  yon  really 
human  ?  You  talk  as  if  you  W3fe." ,  ; ' 

"  No/'  returned  the  Donkey  Engine, 
sadly.  "I  am  neither  fish,  flesh,  nor 
fowl.  I'm  a  bivalve — a  cockney  bivalve," 
he  added. 

"Oh,"  replied  Findlayson,  with  a  gest 
ure  of  deprecation,  "you  are  not  a  clam  !" 

"  No,"  the  Donkey  Engine  replied,  as 
with  a  sudden  inspiration;  "but  I'm  a 
holster." 

And  Findlayson  burst  into  a  paroxysm 
of  mirth — it  must  be  remembered  that  he 
was  English — the  like  of  which  the  good 
old  liner  never  heard  before. 

And  later,  when  Peroo  returned,  having 
won  at  Pole- Kali  with  the  Drummer  z,  he 
found  his  master  sleeping  like  the  veriest 
child. 

Findlaysou  was  saved. 


VI 

IN  WHICH  HARRY  SNOBBE  RECITES  A  TALE 
OF  GLOOM 

MONTY  ST.  VINCENT  had  no  sooner 
seated  himself  after  telling  the  interesting 
tale  of  the  Salvation  of  Findlayson,  when 
Billy  Jones,  of  the  Oracle,  rose  up  and 
stated  that  Mr.  Harry  Snobbe,  as  the 
holder  of  the  seventh  ball,  would  unfold 
the  truly  marvellous  story  that  had  come 
to  him  after  the  first  dinner  of  the 
Dreamers. 

"  Mr.  Snobbe  requests  all  persons  hav 
ing  nerves  to  be  unstrung  to  unstring 
them  now.  His  tale,  he  tells  me,  is  one 
of  intense  gloom ;  but  how  intense  the 
gloom  may  be,  I  know  not.  I  will  leave  it 
to  him  to  show.  Gentlemen,  Mr.  Snobbe. " 
102 


A    TALE    OF    GLOOM 

Mr.  Snobbe  took  the  floor,  and  after  a 
few  preliminary  remarks,  read  as  follows : 

THE  GLOOMSTER 

A  TALE  OP  THE  ISLE  OF  MAN 

Old  Gloomster  Goodheart,  of  Ballyhack, 
left  the  Palace  of  the  Bishop  of  Man 
broken-hearted.  The  Bishop  had  sum 
moned  him  a  week  previous  to  show  cause 
why  he  should  not  be  removed  from  his 
office  of  Gloomster,  a  position  that  had 
been  held  by  members  of  his  family  for 
ten  generations,  aye,  since  the  days  of 
that  ancient  founder  of  the  family,  Cronky 
Gudehart,  of  whom  tradition  states  that 
his  mere  presence  at  a  wedding  turned 
the  marriage  feast  into  a  seeming  funeral 
ceremony,  making  men  and  women  weep, 
and  on  two  occasions  driving  the  bride  to 
suicide  and  the  groom  into  the  Church. 
Indeed,  Cronky  Gudehart  was  himself  the 
first  to  occupy  the  office  of  Gloomster. 
The  office  was  created  for  his  especial  ben 
efit,  as  you  will  see,  for  it  was  the  mere 
103 


THE    DREAMERS:     A    CLUB 

fact  that  the  two  grooms  bereft  at  the 
altar  sought  out  the  consolation  of  the 
monastery  that  called  the  attention  of  the 
ecclesiastical  authorities  to  the  desirability 
of  establishing  such  a  functionary.  The 
two  grooms  were  men  of  wealth,  and,  had 
it  not  been  for  Cronky  Gudehart's  malign 
influence,  neither  they  nor  their  wealth 
would  have  passed  into  the  control  of  the 
Church,,  a  fact  which  Ramsay  Ballawhaine, 
then  Bishop  of  Man,  was  quick  to  note 
and  act  upon. 

"  The  gloomier  the  world,"  said  he, 
"the  more  transcendently  bright  will 
Heaven  seem ;  and  if  we  can  make  Heaven 
seem  bright,  the  Church  will  be  able  to 
declare  dividends.  Let  us  spread  misery 
and  sorrow.  Let  us  destroy  the  sunshine 
of  life  that  so  gilds  with  glory  the  flesh 
and  the  devil.  Let  all  that  is  worldly  be 
made  to  appear  mean  and  vile  and  sordid." 

"  But  how  ?"  Ramsay  Ballawhaine  was 
asked.  "  That  is  a  hard  thing  to  do/' 

"For  some  'twill  doubtless  so  appear, 
but  I  have  a  plan,"  the  Bishop  had  an- 
104 


A    TALE    OF    GLOOM 

swered.  "We  have  here  living,  not  far 
from  Jellimacksquizzle,  the  veriest  spoil 
sport  in  the  person  of  Cronky  Gudehart. 
He  has  a  face  that  would  change  the 
August  beauties  of  a  sylvan  forest  into  a 
bleak  scene  of  wintry  devastation.  I  am 
told  that  when  Cronky  Gudehart  gazes 
upon  a  rose  it  withers,  and  children  pass 
ing  him  in  the  highways  run  shrieking  to 
their  mothers,  as  though  escaping  from 
the  bogie  man  of  Caine  Hall — which  cas 
tle,  as  you  know,  has  latterly  been  haunted 
by  horrors  that  surpass  the  imagination. 
His  voice  is  like  the  strident  cry  of  doom. 
Hearing  his  footsteps,  strong  men  quail 
and  women  swoon;  and  I  am  told  that, 
dressed  as  Santa  Glaus,  on  last  Christmas 
eve  he  waked  up  his  sixteen  children,  and 
with  a  hickory  stick  belabored  one  and  all 
until  they  said  that  mercy  was  all  they 
wanted  for  their  Yule-tide  gifts." 

""Pis  true,"  said  the  assistant  vicar. 
ee  "j<is  Yerv  £rue .  an(j  j  happen  to  know, 

through  my  own  ministrations,  that  when 

a  beggar-woman  from  Sodor  applied  to 

105 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

Cronky  Gudehart  for  relief  from  the  sor 
rows  of  the  world,  he  gave  her  a  bottle  of 
carbolic  acid,  saying  that  therein  lay  the 
cure  of  all  her  woes.  But  what  of  Cronky 
and  your  scheme  ?" 

"Let  us  establish  the  office  of  Gloom 
ster,"  returned  the  Bishop.  "Set  apart 
Nightmare  Abbey  as  his  official  residence, 
and  pay  him  a  salary  to  go  about  among 
the  people  spreading  grief  and  woe  among 
them  until  they  fly  in  desperation  to  us 
who  alone  can  console." 

"It's  out  of  sight!"  ejaculated  the  as 
sistant  vicar,  "and  Cronky's  just  the  man 
for  the  place." 

It  was  thus  that  the  office  of  Gloomster 
was  instituted.  As  will  be  seen,  the  duties 
of  the  Gloomster  were  simple.  He  was 
given  liberty  of  entrance  to  all  joyous 
functions  in  the  life  of  the  Isle  of  Man, 
social  or  otherwise,  and  his  duties  were  to 
ruin  pleasure  wherever  he  might  find  it. 
Cronky  Gudehart  was  installed  in  the  of 
fice,  and  Nightmare  Abbey  was  set  apart 
as  his  official  residence.  He  attended  all 
106 


A    TALE    OF    GLOOM 

weddings,  and  spoiled  them  in  so  far  as  he 
was  able.  It  was  his  custom,  when  the 
vicar  asked  if  there  was  any  just  reason 
why  these  two  should  not  be  joined  to 
gether  in  holy  wedlock,  to  rise  up  and  say 
that,  while  he  had  no  evidence  at  hand, 
he  had  no  doubt  there  was  just  cause  in 
great  plenty,  and  to  suggest  that  the  cere 
mony  should  be  put  off  a  week  or  ten  days 
while  he  and  his  assistants  looked  into  the 
past  records  of  the  principals.  At  funerals 
he  took  the  other  tack,  and  laughed  joy 
ously  at  every  manifestation  of  grief.  At 
hangings  he  would  appear,  and  dilate 
humorously  upon  the  horrid  features 
thereof ;  and  at  afternoon  teas  he  would 
appear  clad  in  black  garments  from  head 
to  foot,  and  exhort  all  present  to  beware 
of  the  future,  and  to  give  up  the  hollow- 
ness  and  vanities  of  tea  and  macaroons. 

Results  were  not  long  in  their  manifes 
tation.  In  place  of  open  marriage  the 
young  people  of  the  isle,  to  escape  the 
malignant  persecution  of  the  Gloom ster, 
took  up  the  habit  of  elopement,  and  as 
107 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

elopements  always  end  in  sorrow  and 
regret,  the  monasteries  and  nunneries 
waxed  great  in  the  land.  To  avoid  fu 
nerals,  at  which  the  Gloomster's  wit  was  so 
fearsome  a  thing,  the  sick  or  the  maimed 
and  the  halt  fled  out  into  the  open  sea  and 
drowned  themselves,  and  all  sociability 
save  that  which  came  from  book  sales  and 
cake  auctions  —  in  their  very  nature  de 
structive  of  a  love  of  life  —  faded  out  of 
the  land. 

"Cronky  Gudehart  was  an  ideal  Gloom- 
ster,"  said  the  Bishop  of  Man,  with  a  sigh, 
when  that  worthy  spoil-sport,  having  gone 
to  Africa  for  a  vacation,  was  eaten  by 
cannibals.  "  We  shall  not  look  upon  his 
like  again." 

"  I've  no  doubt  he  disagreed  with  the 
cannibals,"  sobbed  the  vicar,  as  he  thought 
over  the  virtues  of  the  deceased. 

"None  who  ate  him  could  escape  ap 
pendicitis,"  commented  the  Bishop,  wip 
ing  a  tear  from  his  eye  ;  ' '  and,  thank 
Heaven,  the  operation  for  that  has  yet 
to  be  invented.  Those  cannibals  have 
108 


A    TALE    OF    GLOOM 

been  taken  by  this  time  from  their  wick 
ed  life." 

So  it  had  gone  on  for  ten  generations. 
Cronky  had  been  succeeded  by  his  son 
and  by  his  son's  son,  and  so  on.  To  be 
Gloomster  of  the  Isle  of  Man  had  by  habit 
become  the  prerogative  of  the  Gudehart 
family  until  the  present,  when  Christian 
Goodheart  found  himself  summoned  be 
fore  the  Bishop  to  show  cause  why  he 
should  not  be  removed.  Hitherto  the 
Gloomster  had  given  satisfaction.  It 
would  be  hard  to  point  to  one  of  them — 
unless  we  except  Eric  Goodheart,  the  one 
who  changed  the  name  from  Gudehart  to 
Goodheart — who  had  not  filled  the  island 
with  that  kind  of  sorrow  that  makes  life 
seem  hardly  worth  living.  Eric  Goodheart 
had  once  caught  his  father,  "  Bully  Gude 
hart/'  as  he  was  called,  in  a  moment  of 
forgetfulness,  doing  a  kindly  act  to  a 
beggar  at  the  door.  A  wanderer  had  ap 
peared  at  the  door  of  Nightmare  Abbey 
in  a  starving  condition,  and  Eric  had  sur 
prised  the  Gloomster  in  the  very  act  of 
111 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

giving  the  beggar  a  piece  of  apple-pie.  The 
father  found  himself  suddenly  confronted 
by  the  round,  staring  eyes  of  his  son,  and 
he  was  frightened.  If  it  were  ever  known 
that  the  Gloomster  had  done  a  kindly 
thing  for  anybody,,  he  might  be  removed, 
and  Bully  Gudehart  recognized  the  fact. 

"  Come  here  I"  he  cried  brutally,  to 
Eric,  as  the  beggar  marched  away  munch 
ing  hungrily  on  the  pie.  "  Come  here,  you 
brat  !  Do  you  hear  ?  Come  here /"  The 
boy  was  coming  all  the  while.  "  You  saw  ?" 

"  Yes,  your  Honor," he  replied,  "  I  saw. 
The  man  said  he  was  nearly  dead  with 
hunger,  and  you  gave  him  food." 

"No,  "roared  the  Gloomster,  full  of  fear, 
for  he  knew  how  small  boys  prattle,  "  I  did 
not  give  him  food  !  I  gave  him  pie!" 

"All  right,  your  Majesty,"  the  boy  an 
swered.  "  You  gave  him  pie.  And  I  see 
now  why  they  call  you  Bully.  For  pie  is 
bully,  and  nothing  less." 

"My  son,"  the  Gloomster  responded, 
seizing  a  trunk-strap  and  whacking  the 
lad  with  it  forcefully,  "you  don't  under- 
112 


A    TALE    OF    GLOOM 

stand.     Do  you  know   why   I   fed  that 
man  ?" 

"  Because  he  was  dying  of  hunger/7 
replied  the  lad,  ruefully,  rubbing  his  back 
where  the  trunk-strap  had  hit  him. 

"  Precisely,"  said  the  Gloomster.  "  If 
I  hadn't  given  him  that  pie  he'd  have 
died  on  the  premises,  and  I  can't  afford 
the  expense  of  having  a  tramp  die  here. 
As  it  is,  he  will  enjoy  a  lingering  death. 
That  ivas  one  of  your  mother's  pies." 

Eric  ran  sobbing  to  his  room,  but  in 
his  heart  he  believed  that  he  had  detected 
his  father  in  a  kindly  act,  and  conceived 
that  a  Gloomster  might  occasionally  relax. 
Nevertheless,  when  he  succeeded  to  the 
office  he  was  stern  and  unrelenting,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  occasionally  there 
was  to  be  detected  in  his  eye  a  glance  of 
geniality.  This  was  doubtless  due  to  the 
fact  that  from  the  time  of  his  intrusion 
upon  his  father's  moment  of  weakness  he 
was  soundly  thrashed  every  morning  before 
breakfast,  and  spanked  before  retiring  at 
night,  as  a  preliminary  to  his  prayers. 
H  113 


THE    DREAMERS:     A    CLUB 

But  Christian  Goodheart,  the  present 
incumbent,  had  not  given  satisfaction, 
and  his  Bishop  had  summoned  him  to 
show  cause  why  he  should  not  be  removed, 
and,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Gloomster  had 
gone  away  broken-hearted.  Shortly  after 
having  arrived  at  Nightmare  Abbey  he 
was  greeted  by  his  wife. 

"  Well,  Christian,''  she  said,  "  what  did 
the  Bishop  say  ?" 

"  He  wants  my  resignation/'  sighed 
Christian.  "  He  says  I  have  shown  my 
self  unworthy,  and  I  fear  he  has  evi 
dence." 

" Evidence?  Against  you,  my  hus 
band,  the  most  disagreeable  man  in  the 
isle  ?"  cried  his  wife,  fondly. 

"  Yes,"  sighed  Christian.  "  Do  you  re 
member,  you  old  termagant,  how,  forget 
ting  myself  and  my  position,  last  Tuesday 
I  laughed  when  Peter  Skelly  told  us  what 
his  baby  said  to  his  nurse  ?" 

' '  I  do,  Christian/'  the  good  woman  an 
swered.  "You  laughed  heartily,  and  I 
warned  you  to  be  careful.  It  is  not  the 
114 


A    TALE    OF    GLOOM 

Gloomster's  place  to  laugh,  and  I  feared 
it  might  reach  the  Bishop's  ears." 

"It  has  done  so,"  sighed  Christian, 
shaking  his  head  sadly  and  wringing  his 
hands  in  his  agony.  "It  has  reached  the 
Bishop's  ears.  Little  Glory  Grouse  was 
passing  by  the  door  at  the  moment  and 
saw  me.  Astonished,  the  child  ran  home 
and  told  her  mother.  '  Mommer  !'  she 
cried,  '  I  have  seen  the  Gloomster  langh  ! 
I  have  seen  the  Gloomster  laugh  !'  The 
child  was  cross-questioned,  but  stuck  to 
her  story  until  Mrs.  Grouse  was  con 
vinced,  and  told  her  neighbors,  and  these 
neighbors  told  other  neighbors,  until  the 
story  came  to  the  ears  of  Canon  Cashman, 
by  whom  it  was  conveyed  to  the  Bishop 
himself." 

"  What  a  little  gossip  that  Glory  Grouse 
is  !  She'll  come  to  a  bad  end,  mark  my 
words  !"  cried  Mrs.  Goodheart,  angrily. 
"She'll  have  her  honored  father's  name 
on  the  circus  posters  yet." 

"Do  not  blame  the  child,"  said  Chris 
tian,  sadly.  "  She  was  right.  Who  had 
115 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

ever  seen  a  Gloomster  smile  before  ?  As 
well  expect  a  ray  of  sunshine  or  a  glimpse 
of  humor  in  a  Manx  novel — " 

"  But  the  Bishop  is  not  going  to  remove 
yon  for  one  false  step,  is  he,  Christian  ? 
He  cannot  do  that,  can  he  ?"  pleaded  the 
woman. 

"That  is  what  I  asked  him  ?"  Christian 
answered.  "  And  he  handed  me  a  type 
written  memorandum  of  what  he  called 
my  record.  It  seems  that  for  six  months 
they  have  been  spying  upon  me.  Read  it 
for  yourself." 

Mrs.  Goodheart  took  the  paper  and  read, 
with  trembling  hands  : 

"  '  January  1,  1898 — wished  Peggy  Me- 
guire  a  happy  New  Year.'  Did  you  real 
ly,  Christian  ?" 

"  I  don't  remember  doing  so,"  sighed  the 
Gloomster.  "If  I  did,  it  must  have  been 
in  sarcasm,  for  I  hate  Peggy  Meguire,  and 
I  am  sure  I  wish  her  nothing  of  the  sort. 
I  told  the  Bishop  so,  but  all  he  would  say 
was,  'Read  on.' ' 

"  '  February  23,  1898,'  "  Mrs..  Good- 
116 


WISHED   HER  A   HAPPY   NEW-YEAR 


A    TALE    OF    GLOOM 

heart  continued,  reading  from  the  paper 
— "  Hook  off  his  coat  and  wrapped  it  about 
the  shivering  form  of  a  freezing  woman/ 

"How  very  imprudent  of  you,  Chris 
tian  !"  said  his  wife. 

"But  the  Bishop  didn't  know  the  cir 
cumstances,"  said  Christian.  "  It  was  the 
subtlest  kind  of  deviltry,  not  humanity, 
that  prompted  the  act.  If  I  hadn't  given 
her  my  coat,  the  old  lady  would  have 
frozen  to  death  and  been  soon  out  of  her 
misery.  As  it  was,  my  wet  coat  saved  her 
from  an  immediate  surcease  of  sorrow, 
and,  as  I  had  foreseen,  gave  her  muscular 
rheumatism  of  the  most  painful  sort, 
from  which  she  has  suffered  ever  since." 

"You  should  have  explained  to  the 
Bishop." 

"I  did." 

"  And  what  did  he  say  ?" 

"  He  said  my  methods  were  too  damned 
artistic." 

"What  ?"  cried  Mrs.  Goodheart.  "  The 
Bishop?" 

"Oh,  well,"  said  Christian,  "words  to 
119 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

that  effect.  He  doesn't  appreciate  the 
subtleties  of  gloom  distinction.  What  he 
looks  for  is  sheer  brutality.  Might  as 
well  employ  an  out-and-out  desperado  for 
the  work.  I  like  to  infuse  a  little  art  into 
my  work.  I've  tried  to  bring  Gloomster- 
ism  up  to  the  level  of  an  art,  a  science. 
Slapping  a  man  in  the  face  doesn't  make 
him  gloomy ;  it  makes  him  mad.  But 
subtlely  infusing  woe  into  his  daily  life,  so 
that  he  doesn't  know  whence  all  his  trou 
ble  conies — ah  !  that  is  the  perfect  flower 
of  the  Gloomster's  work  I" 

"H'm!"  said  Mrs.  Goodheart.  "That's 
well  enough,  Christian.  If  you  are  rich 
enough  to  consume  your  own  product 
with  profit,  it's  all  right  to  be  artistic ; 
but  if  you  are  dependent  on  a  salary,  don't 
forget  your  consumer.  What  else  have 
they  against  you  ?" 

"Read  on,  woman,"  said  the  Gloom- 
ster. 

"< April  1,  1898,'"  the  lady  read. 
" '  Gave  a  half-crown  to  a  starving  beg 
gar.'" 

120 


A    TALE    OF    GLOOM 

et  That  was  another  highly  artistic  act/' 
said  Christian.  "  I  told  the  Bishop  that 
I  had  given  the  coin  to  the  beggar  know 
ing  it  to  be  counterfeit,  and  hoping  that 
he  would  be  arrested  for  trying  to  pass  it. 
The  Bishop  cut  me  short  by  saying  that 
my  hope  had  not  been  fulfilled.  It  seems 
that  that  ass  of  a  beggar  bought  some 
food  with  the  half-crown,  and  the  grocer 
who  sold  him  the  food  put  the  counterfeit 
half-crown  in  the  contribution-box  the 
next  Sunday,  and  the  Church  was  stuck. 
That's  what  I  call  hard  luck." 

"  Oh,  well,"  returned  Mrs.  Goodheart. 
putting  the  paper  down  in  despair. 
"  There's  no  need  to  read  further.  That 
alone  is  sufficient  to  cause  your  downfall. 
When  do  you  resign  ?" 

"  At  once,"  sighed  Christian.  "In  fact, 
the  Bishop  had  already  written  my  resig 
nation — which  I  signed." 

"  And  the  land  is  without  a  Gloomster 
for  the  first  time  in  five  hundred  years  ?" 
demanded  Mrs.  Goodheart. 

"  No,"  said  Christian,  the  tears  coursing 
121 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

down  his  nose.  "The  place  is  filled  al 
ready,  and  by  one  who  knows  gloom  only 
theoretically — a  mere  summer  resident  of 
the  Isle  of  Man.  In  short,  a  famous  Lon 
don  author  has  succeeded  me." 

"His  name  I"  cried  Mrs.  Goodheart. 

"Just  then/'  said  Snobbe,  "'I  awoke, 
and  did  not  catch  the  author's  name.  It 
is  a  curious  thing  about  dreams  that  just 
when  you  get  to  the  crucial  point  you 
wake  up." 

"  I  wonder  who  the  deuce  the  chap 
could  have  been  ?"  murmured  the  other 
diners.  "  Has  any  London  author  with  a 
residence  on  the  Isle  of  Man  ever  shown 
any  acquaintance  with  gloom  ?" 

"I  don't  know  for  sure/'  said  Billy 
Jones.  i(  But  my  impression  is  that  it 
must  be  the  editor  of  Punch.  What  I  am 
uncertain  about  is  his  residence  on  the 
Isle  of  Man.  Otherwise  I  think  he  fills 
the  bill/' 


VII 
THE  DREAMERS  DISCUSS  A  MAGAZINE  POEM 

THE  pathetic  tale  of  the  Gloomster  hav 
ing  been  told  and  discussed,  it  turned  out 
that  Haarlem  Bridge  was  the  holder  of  the 
next  ball  in  the  sequence,  the  eighth. 
Haarley  had  been  looking  rather  nervous 
all  the  evening,  and  two  or  three  times  he 
manifested  some  desire  to  withdraw  from 
the  scene.  By  order  of  the  chairman, 
however,  the  precaution  had  been  taken 
to  lock  all  the  doors,  so  that  none  of  the 
Dreamers  should  escape,  and,  consequent 
ly,  when  the  evil  hour  arrived,  Haarley 
was  perforce  on  hand. 

He  rose  up  reluctantly,  and,  taking  a 

single  page  of  manuscript  from  his  pocket, 

after  a  few  preliminary  remarks  that  were 

no  more  nor  less  coherent  than  the  aver- 

123 


THE    DREAMERS:    A   CLUB 

age  after-dinner  speech,  read  the  follow 
ing  lines,  which  he  termed  a  magazine 
poem : 

"  O  argent- browed  Sarcophagus, 

That  looms  so  through  the  ethered  trees, 
Why  dost  thou  seem  to  those  of  us 

Who  drink  the  poisoned  chalice  on  our  knees 
So  distant  and  so  emp3rrean, 

So  dour  yet  full  of  mystery  ? 
Hast  thou  the  oracle  as  yet  unseen 

To  guide  thy  fell  misogyny  ? 

"Nay,  let  the  spirit  of  the  age 

With  all  its  mystic  beauty  stand 

Translucent  ever,  aye,  in  spite  the  rage 
Of  Cossack  and  of  Samarcand  ! 

Thou  art  enough  for  any  soul's  desire  ! 

Thou  hast  the  beauty  of  cerulean  fire  ! 

But  we  who  grovel  on  the  damask  earth 

Are  we  despoilt  of  thy  exigeant  mirth  ? 

"Canst  listen  to  a  prayer,  Sarcophagus? 
Indeed  O  art  thou  there,  Sarcophagus  ? 
What  time  the  Philistine  denies, 
What  time  the  raucous  cynic  cries, 
Avaunt,  yet  spare  !    Let  this  thy  motto  be, 
With  thy  thesaurian  verbosity. 
Nor  think  that  I,  a  caterpillian  worm, 
Before  thy  glance  should  ever  honk  or  squirm. 
124 


'"O  ARGENT- BROWED  SARCOPHAGUS'" 


A    MAGAZINE    POEM 

"Tis  but  the  stern  condition  of  the  poor 
That  panting  brings  me  pottering  at  thy  door, 
To  breathe  of  love  and  argent  charity 
For  thee,  for  thee,  iguanodonic  thee  !" 

"That's  an  excellent  specimen  of  maga 
zine  poetry,"  said  Billy  Jones.  "  But  I 
observe,  Haarley,  that  yon  haven't  given  it 
a  title.  Perhaps  if  you  gave  it  a  title  we 
might  get  at  the  mystery  of  its  meaning. 
A  title  is  a  sort  of  Baedeker  to  the  gen 
eral  run  of  magazine  poems." 

Haarlem  grew  rather  Ted  of  counte 
nance  as  he  answered,  "  Well,  I  didn't  ex 
actly  like  to  give  it  the  title  I  dreamed ;  it 
didn't  seem  to  shed  quite  as  much  light 
on  the  subject  as  a  title  should." 

"  Still,  it  may  help,"  said  Buddy  Eivers. 
"I  read  a  poem  in  a  magazine  the  other 
day  on  '  Mystery.'  And  if  it  hadn't  had  a 
title  I'd  never  have  understood  it.  It  ran 
this  way  : 

"  Life,  what  art  thou  ?    Whence  springest  thou  ? 
The  past,  the  future,  or  the  now  ? 
Whence  comes  thy  lowering  lunacy  ? 
Whence  comes  thy  mizzling  mystery  ? 
127 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

Hast  thou  a  form,  a  shape,  a  lineament  ? 
Hast  thou  a  single  seraph- eyed  medicament 
To  ease  our  sorrow  and  our  twitching  woe  ? 
Hast  thou  one  laudable  Alsatian  glow 
To  compensate,  commensurate,  and  condign 
For  all  these  dastard,  sleekish  qualms  of  mine  ? 
Hast  thou  indeed  an  abject  agate  plot 
To  show  that  what  exists  is  really  not  ? 
Or  art  thou  just  content  to  sit  and  say 
Life's  but  a  specious,  coral  roundelay  ?" 

"  I  committed  the  thing  to  memory  be 
cause  it  struck  me  as  being  a  good  thing 
to  remember  —  it  was  so  full  of  good 
phrases.  '  Twitching  woe/  for  instance,, 
and  '  sleekish  qualms/  "  he  continued. 

' '  Quaking  qualms  would  have  been  bet 
ter/' put  in  Tenafly  Paterson,  who  judged 
poetry  from  an  alliterative  point  of 
view. 

"Nevertheless,  Hiked  sleekish  qualms/' 
retorted  Huddy.  "Quaking qualms  might 
be  more  alliterative,  but  sleekish  qualms 
is  less  commonplace." 

"  No  doubt/'  said  Tenafly.  "  I  never 
had  'em  myself,  so  I'll  take  your  word  for 
128 


A    MAGAZINE    POEM 

it.  But  what  do  you  make  out  of  '  coral 
roundelay '  ?" 

"Nothing  at  all,"  said  Huddy.  "I 
don't  bother  my  head  about  '  coral  round 
elay'  or  ' seraph  -eyed  medicament/  I 
haven't  wasted  an  atom  of  my  gray  mat 
ter  on  ' lowering  lunacy'  or  ' agate  plot' 
or  '  mizzling  mystery.'  And  all  because 
the  poet  gave  his  poem  a  title.  He  called 
the  thing  '  Mystery/  and  when  I  had  read 
it  over  half  a  dozen  times  I  concluded 
that  he  was  right ;  and  if  the  thing  re 
mained  a  mystery  to  the  author,,  I  don't 
see  why  a  reader  should  expect  ever  to  be 
able  to  understand  it." 

"  Very  logical  conclusion,  Huddy,"  said 
Billy  Jones,  approvingly.  "If  a  poet 
chooses  a  name  for  his  poem,  you  may 
make  up  your  mind  that  there  is  good 
reason  for  it,  and  certainly  the  verses  you 
have  recited  about  the  '  coral  roundelay' 
are  properly  designated." 

"  Well,  I'd  like  to  have  the  title  of  that 
yard  of  rhyme  Haarlem  Bridge  just  re 
cited,"  put  in  Dobbs  Ferry,  scratching  his 
i  129 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

head  in  bewilderment.  "  It  strikes  me  as 
being  quite  as  mysterious  as  Huddy's. 
What  the  deuce  can  a  man  mean  by  re 
ferring  to  an  '  auburn-haired  Sarcopha- 
gus'?" 

"It  wasn't  auburn  -  haired/'  expostu 
lated  Haarlem.  "  It  was  argent-browed." 

"  Old  Sarcophagus  had  nickel  -  plated 
eyebrows,  Dobby,"  cried  Tom  Snobbe, 
forgetting  himself  for  a  moment. 

"  Well,  who  the  dickens  was  old  Sar 
cophagus  ?"  queried  Dobby,  unappeased. 

"  He  was  one  of  the  Egyptian  kings, 
my  dear  boy,"  vouchsafed  Billy  Jones,  ex 
ploding  internally  with  mirth.  "  You've 
heard  of  Augustus  Caesar,  haven't  you  ?" 

"Yes,"  said  Dobby. 

"  Well,"  explained  Billy  Jones,  "  Sar 
cophagus  occupied  the  same  relation  to 
the  Egyptians  that  Augustus  did  to  the 
Romans — in  fact,  the  irreverent  used  to 
call  him  Sarcophagustus,  instead  of  Sar 
cophagus,  which  was  his  real  name.  This 
poem  of  Haarley's  is  manifestly  addressed 
to  him." 

130 


A    MAGAZINE    POEM 

"  Did  he  have  nickel-plated  eyebrows  ?" 
asked  Bedfork  Parke,  satirically. 

"  No,"  said  Billy  Jones.  "  As  I  remem 
ber  the  story  of  Sarcophagus  as  I  read  of 
him  in  college,  he  was  a  very  pallid  sort 
of  a  potentate — his  forehead  was  white  as 
marble.  So  they  called  him  the  Argent- 
browed  Sarcophagus." 

"  It's  a  good  thing  for  us  we  have  Billy 
Jones  with  us  to  tell  us  all  these  things/' 
whispered  Tom  Snobbe  to  his  brother 
Dick. 

«  You  betyour life," said  Dick.  "There's 
nothing,  after  all,  like  a  classical  educa 
tion.  I  wish  I'd  known  it  while  I  was 
getting  mine." 

"What's  'fell  misogyny'?"  asked  Ten- 
afly  Paterson,  who  seemed  to  be  somewhat 
enamoured  of  the  phrase.  "Didn't  old 
Sarcophagus  care  for  chemistry  ?" 

"  Chemistry?"  demanded  the  chairman. 

"That's  what  I  said,"  said  Tenny. 
"  Isn't  misogyny  a  chemical  compound 
of  metal  and  gas  ?" 

Tenny  had  been  to  the  School  of  Mines 
133 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

for  two  weeks,  and  had  retired  because  he 
didn't  care  for  mathematics  and  the  table 
at  the  college  restaurant  wasn't  good. 

"  I  fancy  you  are  thinking  of  hetero- 
phemy,  which  is  an  infusion  of  unorthodox 
gases  into  a  solution  of  vocabulary  parti 
cles/'  suggested  Billy  Jones,  grasping  his 
sides  madly  to  keep  them  from  shaking. 

"  Oh  yes, '  said  Tenny,  ' '  of  course.  I 
remember  now."  Then  he  laughed  some 
what,  and  added,  ' '  I  always  get  misogyny 
and  heterophemy  mixed." 

"  Who  wouldn't  ?"  cried  Harry  Snobbe. 
"  I  do  myself  !  There's  no  chance  to  talk 
about  either  where  I  live,"  he  added. 
"  Half  the  people  don't  know  what  they 
mean.  They're  not  very  anthropological 
up  my  way." 

"  What's  a  Samarcand  ?"  asked  Tena- 
fly,  again.  "  Haarley's  poem  speaks  of 
Cossack  and  of  Samarcand.  Of  course 
we  all  know  that  a  Cossack  is  a  garment 
worn  by  the  Russian  peasants,  but  I  never 
heard  of  a  Samarcand." 

"  It's  a  thing  to  put  about  your  neck," 
134 


A    MAGAZINE    POEM 

said  Dick  Snobbe.  "  They  wear  'em  in 
winter  out  in  Siberia.  I  looked  it  up 
some  years  ago/' 

"Let's  take  up  f  cerulean  fire/"  said 
Bedford  Parke,  Tenafly  appearing  to  be 
satisfied  with  Snobbe's  explanation. 

"What's  ' cerulean  fire'?" 

"Blue  ruin,"  said  Huddy. 

"And  < damask  earth'?"  said  Bedford. 

"Easy,"  cried  Huddy.  "Even  I  can 
understand  that.  Did  you  never  hear, 
Beddy,  of  painting  a  town  red  ?  That's 
damask  earth  in  a  small  way.  If  you  can 
paint  a  town  red  with  your  limited  re 
sources,  what  couldn't  a  god  do  with  a 
godlike  credit  ?  As  I  understand  the 
poem,  old  Sarcophagus  comes  down  out 
of  the  cerulean  fire,  and  goes  in  for  a  lit 
tle  damask  earth.  That's  why  the  poet 
later  says  : 

' ' '  Canst  listen  to  a  prayer,  Sarcophagus  ? 
Indeed  0  art  thou  there,  Sarcophagus  ?' 

He  wanted  to  pray  to  him,  but  didn't  know 

if  he'd  got  back  from  damask  earth  yet." 

135 


THE    DREAMERS:     A    CLUB 

"You're  a  perfect  wonder,  Huddy/'said 
Billy  Jones.  "As  a  thought-detector  you 
are  a  beauty.  I  believe  you'd  succeed  if 
you  opened  up  a  literary  bureau  some 
where  and  devoted  your  time  to  explain 
ing  Browning  and  Meredith  and  others  to 
a  mystified  public." 

"'Tis  an  excellent  idea/'  said  Tom 
Snobbe.  "  I'd  really  rejoice  to  see  cer 
tain  modern  British  masterpieces  trans 
lated  into  English,  and,  with  headquar 
ters  in  Boston,  the  institution  ought  to 
flourish.  Do  worms  honk  ?" 

"  I  never  heard  of  any  doing  so/'  replied 
the  chairman,  "but  in  these  days  it  is 
hardly  safe  to  say  that  anything  is  impos 
sible.  If  you  have  watched  the  develop 
ment  of  the  circus  in  the  last  five  years — 
I  mean  the  real  circus,  not  the  literary — 
you  must  have  observed  what  an  ad 
vance  intellectually  has  been  made  by  the 
various  members  of  the  animal  kingdom. 
Elephants  have  been  taught  to  sit  at  table 
and  dine  like  civilized  beings  on  things 
that  aren't  good  for  them  ;  pigs  have  been 
136 


MR.   BILLY  JONES 


A    MAGAZINE    POEM 

educated  so  that,  instead  of  evincing  none 
but  the  more  domestic  virtues  and  stay 
ing  contentedly  at  home,  they  now  play 
poker  with  the  sangfroid  of  a  man  about 
town;  while  the  seal,  a  creature  hitherto 
considered  useful  only  in  the  production 
of  sacques  for  our  wives,  and  ear-tabs  for 
our  children,  and  mittens  for  our  hired 
men,  are  now  branching  out  as  rivals  to 
the  college  glee  clubs,  singing  songs,  play 
ing  banjoes,  and  raising  thunder  general 
ly.  Therefore  it  need  surprise  no  one 
if  a  worm  should  learn  to  honk  as  high 
as  any  goose  that  ever  honked.  Anyhow, 
you  can't  criticise  a  poet  for  anything  of 
that  kind.  His  license  permits  him  to 
take  any  liberties  he  may  see  fit  with  ex 
isting  conditions." 

"All  of  which,"  observed  Dick  Snobbe, 
"is  wandering  from  the  original  point  of 
discussion.  What  is  the  meaning  of  Haar- 
ley's  poem  ?  I  can't  see  that  as  yet  we 
have  reached  a  definite  understanding  on 
that  point." 

"Well,  I  must  confess,"  said  Jones, 
139 


THE    DREAMERS:     A    CLUB 

"  that  I  can't  understand  it  myself;  but  I 
never  could  understand  magazine  poetry, 
so  that  doesn't  prove  anything.  I'm  only 
a  newspaper  man." 

"Let's  have  the  title,  Haarley,"  cried 
Tenafly  Paterson.  "  Was  it  called  <  Life/ 
or  '  Nerve  Cells/  or  what  ?" 

For  a  second  Bridge's  cheeks  grew  red. 

"  Oh,  well,  if  you  must  have  it,"  he  said, 
desperately,  "  here  it  is.  It  was  called, 
'  A  Thought  on  Hearing,  While  Visiting 
Gibraltar  in  June,  1898,  that  the  War  De 
partment  at  Washington  Had  Failed  to 
Send  Derricks  to  Cuba,  Thereby  Delaying 
the  Landing  of  General  Shafter  Three 
Days  and  Giving  Comfort  to  the  En 
emy/'* 

"  Great  Scott  !"  roared  Dick  Snobbe. 
"What  a  title!" 

"  It  is  excellent,"  said  Billy  Jones.  "  I 
now  understand  the  intent  of  the  poem." 

"Which  was—  ?"  asked  Rivers. 

"To  supply  a  real  hiatus  in  latter-day 
letters,"  Jones  replied;  "to  give  the  pub 
lic  a  war  poem  that  would  make  them 
140 


A    MAGAZINE    POEM 

think,  which  is  what  a  true  war  poem 
should  do.  Who  has  the  ninth  ball  ?" 

"  I  am  the  unfortunate  holder  of  that," 
said  Greenwich  Place.  "  Fd  just  been 
reading  Anthony  Hope  and  Mr.  Dooley. 
The  result  is  a  composite,  which  I  will 
read." 

"  What  do  you  call  it,  Mr.  Place  ?" 
asked  the  stenographer. 

"Well,  I  don't  know,"  replied  Green 
wich.  "I  guess  <A  Dooley  Dialogue' 
about  describes  it." 


VIII 
DOLLY   VISITS   CHICAGO 

Being  the  substance  of  a  Dooley  dialogue  dreamed 
by  Greenwich  Place,  Esq. 

"  I  MUST  see  him,"  said  Dolly,  rising 
suddenly  from  her  chair  and  walking  to 
the  window.  "  I  really  must,  you  know." 

"  Who  ?"  I  asked,  rousing  myself  from 
the  lethargy  into  which  my  morning  pa 
per  had  thrust  me.  It  was  not  grammat 
ical  of  me — I  was  somewhat  under  the  in 
fluence  of  newspaper  English — but  Dolly 
is  quick  to  understand.  "  Must  see  who  ?" 
I  continued. 

"  Who  indeed  ?"  cried  Dolly,  gazing  at 

me  in  mock  surprise.     "  How  stupid  of 

you  !     If  I  went  to  Eome  and  said  I  must 

see  him,  you'd  know  I  must  mean  the 

142 


DOLLY    VISITS    CHICAGO 

Pope  ;  if  I  went  to  Berlin  and  said  I  must 
see  it,  you'd  know  I  meant  the  Emperor. 
Therefore,  when  I  come  to  Chicago  and 
say  that  I  must  see  him,  you  ought  to  be 
able  to  guess  that  I  mean — 

"  Mr.  Dooley  ?"  I  ventured,  at  a  guess. 

"  Good  for  you  !"  cried  Dolly,  clapping 
her  hands  together  joyously  ;  and  then 
she  hummed  bewitchingly,  "The  Boy 
Guessed  Eight  the  Very  First  Time,"  un 
til  I  begged  her  to  desist.  When  Dolly 
claps  her  hands  and  hums,  she  becomes 
a  vision  of  loveliness  that  would  give 
the  most  confirmed  misogynist  palpita 
tion  of  the  heart,  and  I  had  no  wish  to 
die. 

"  Do  you  suppose  I  could  call  upon 
him  without  being  thought  too  uncon 
ventional  ?"  she  blurted  out  in  a  moment. 

"You  can  do  anything,"  said  I,  admir 
ingly.  "  That  is,  with  me  to  help,"  I  add 
ed,  for  I  should  be  sorry  if  Dolly  were  to 
grow  conceited.  "  Perhaps  it  would  be 
better  to  have  Mr.  Dooley  call  upon  you. 
Suppose  you  send  him  your  card,  and  put 
143 


THE    DREAMERS:     A    CLUB 

'  at  home '  on  it  ?  I  fancy  that  would 
fetch  him/' 

"  Happy  thought  \"  said  Dolly.  "  Only 
I  haven't  one.  In  the  excitement  of  our 
elopement  I  forgot  to  get  any.  Suppose  I 
write  my  name  on  a  blank  card  and  send 
it?" 

"Excellent,"  said  I. 

And  so  it  happened ;  the  morning's 
mail  took  out  an  envelope  addressed  to 
Mr.  Dooley,  and  containing  a  bit  of  paste 
board  upon  which  was  written,  in  the 
charming  hand  of  Dolly  : 


Mrs.  R.  Dolly-Rassendyll. 
At  Home. 

The  Hippodorium. 
Tuesday  Afternoon. 


The  response  was  gratifyingly  imme 
diate. 

The  next  morning  Dolly's  mail  con 
tained  Mr.  Dooley's  card,  which  read  as 
follows  : 

144 


DOLLY    VISITS    CHICAGO 


Mr.  Dooley. 

At  Work. 

Every  Day.  Archie  Road. 


"  Which  means  ?"  said  Dolly,  tossing 
the  card  across  the  table  to  me. 

"That  if  you  want  to  see  Dooley  you'll 
have  to  call  upon  him  at  his  place  of  busi 
ness.  It's  a  saloon,  I  believe/'  I  observed. 
"  Or  a  club — most  American  saloons  are 
clubs,  I  understand." 

"I  wonder  if  there's  a  ladies'  day 
there  ?"  laughed  Dolly.  "If  there  isn't, 
perhaps  I'd  better  not/' 

And  I  of  course  agreed,  for  when  Dolly 
thinks  perhaps  she'd  better  not,  I  always 
agree  with  her,  particularly  when  the 
thing  is  a  trifle  unconventional. 

"  I  am  sorry,"  she  said,  as  we  reached 
the  conclusion.  "To  visit  Chicago  with 
out  meeting  Mr.  Dooley  strikes  me  as  like 
making  the  Mediterranean  trip  without 
seeing  Gibraltar." 

147 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

But  we  were  not  to  be  disappointed, 
after  all,  for  that  afternoon  who  should 
call  but  the  famous  philosopher  himself, 
accompanied  by  his  friend  Mr.  Hennessey. 
They  were  ushered  into  our  little  parlor, 
and  Dolly  received  them  radiantly. 

"Iv  coorse,"  said  Dooley,  "I  hatter 
come  t'  see  me  new-found  cousin.  Hen 
nessey  here  says,  he  says,  '  She  ain't  yer 
cousin,'  he  says  ;  but  whin  I  read  yer 
car-r-rd  over  th'  second  time,  an'  see  yer 
na-a-ame  was  R.  Dooley-Rassendyll,wid  th' 
hifalution  betwixt  th'  Dooley  an'  th'  Ras- 
sendyll,  I  says,  '  Hennessey,'  I  says,  'that 
shmall  bit  iv  a  coupler  in  that  na-a-ame 
means  only  wan  thing,'  I  says.  '  Th'  la- 
ady/  I  says,  i  was  born  a  Dooley,  an'  's 
prood  iv  it,'  I  says,  '  as  she'd  ought  to  be,' 
I  says.  'Shure  enough,'  says  Hennessey; 
'butthey's  Dooleys  an'  Dooleys,'  he  says. 
'  Is  she  Roscommon  or  Idunnaw  ?'  he  says. 
*  I  dinnaw  meself,'  I  says,  '  but  whichiver 
she  is,' I  says,  'I'm  goin'  to  see  her,'  I 
says.  '  Anny  wan  that  can  feel  at  home 
in  a  big  hotel  like  the  Hippojorium,'  I 
148 


DOLLY    VISITS    CHICAGO 

says,  e  is  wort/  lookin'  at,  if  only  for  the 
curawsity  of  it/  I  says.  Are  ye  here  for 
long?"  " 

"We  are  just  passing  through,"  said 
Dolly,  with  a  pleased  smile. 

"It's  a  gud  pla-ace  for  that," said  Doo- 
ley.  "  Thim  as  pass  troo  Chicago  gineral- 
ly  go  awaa  pleased,  an'  thim  as  stays  t'ink 
it's  th'  only  pla-ace  in  th'  worruld,  gud 
luk  to  'em  !  for,  barrin'  Eoscommon  an' 
New  York,  it's  th'  only  pla-ace  I  have 
anny  use  for.  Is  yer  hoosband  anny  rela 
tion  t'  th'  dood  in  the  Prizner  iv  Cm- 


I  laughed  quietly,  but  did  not  resent 
the  implication.  I  left  Dolly  to  her  fate. 

"He  is  the  very  same  person,"  said 
Dolly. 

"  I  t'ought  as  much,"  said  Dooley,  eying 
me  closely.  "  Th'  strorberry  mark  on  his 
hair  sort  of  identified  him,"  he  added. 
"  Cousin  Koopert,  I  ta-ak  ye  by  the  hand. 
Ye  was  a  bra-ave  lad  in  th'  first  book,  an' 
a  dorn'd  fool  in  th'  second  ;  but  I  read  th' 
second  first,  and  th'  first  lasht,  so  whin  I 
149 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

left  ye  ye  was  all  right.  I  fought  ye  was 
dead  ?" 

( '  No,"  said  I.  ' 1 1  am  only  dead  in  the 
sense  that  Mr.  Hope  has  no  further  use 
for  me." 

"A  wise  mon,  that  Mr.  Ant'ny  Hawp," 
said  Dooley.  ' '  Whin  I  write  me  book,"  he 
continued,  "  I'm  goin'  t'  shtop  short  whin 
folks  have  had  enough." 

"Oh,  indeed!"  cried  Dolly,  enthusias 
tically.  "Are  you  writing  a  book,  Mr. 
Dooley  ?  I  am.  so  glad." 

"  Yis,"  said  Dooley,  deprecatingly,  yet 
pleased  by  Dolly's  enthusiasm.  "  I'm  half 
finished  already.  That  is  to  say,  Fve  made 
th'  illusthrations.  An'  the  publishers  have 
accepted  the  book  on  th'  stringth  iv  them." 

"  Really  ?"  said  Dolly.  "  Do  you  really 
draw?" 

"  Nawm,"  said  Dooley.  "  I  niver  drew 
a  picture  in  me  life." 

"  He  draws  corks,"  put  in  Hennessey. 
"  He's  got  a  pull  that  bates—" 

"  Hennessey,"  interrupted  Mr.  Dooley, 
"since  whin  have  ye  been  me  funnygraph  ? 
150 


DOLLY    VISITS    CHICAGO 

Whin  me  cousin  ashks  me  riddles,  I'll  tell 
her  th'  answers.  G'  down-shtairs  an'  get 
a  cloob  san'wich  an'  ate  yourself  to  death. 
Char-rge  it  to — er — char-rge  it  to  Misther 
Rassendyll  here  —  me  cousin  Roop,  be 
marritch.  He  looks  liks  a  soft  t'ing." 

Hennessey  subsided  and  showed  an  in 
clination  to  depart,  and  I,  not  liking  to 
see  a  well-meaning  person  thus  sat  upon, 
tried  to  be  pleasant  to  him. 

"  Don't  go  just  yet,  Mr.  Hennessey," 
said  I.  "  I  should  like  to  talk  to  you." 

"  Mr.  Rassendyll,"  he  replied,  ' '  I'm  not 
goin'  just  yet,  but  an  invitation  to  join 
farces  with  one  iv  the  Hippojorium's  cloob 
sandwhiches  is  too  much  for  me.  I  must 
accept.  Phwat  is  the  noomber  iv  your 
shweet  ?" 

I  gave  him  the  number,  and  Hennessey 
departed.  Before  he  went,  however,  he 
comforted  me  somewhat  by  saying  that 
he  too  was  "a  puppit  in  th'  han's  iv  an 
auter.  Ye've  got  to  do,"  said  he,  "what- 
iver  ye're  sint  t'  do.  I'm  told  ye've  killed 
a  million  Germans — bless  ye  ! — but  ye're 
151 


THE    DREAMERS:     A    CLUB 

nawthin7  but  a  facthory  hand  afther  all. 
Fm  th7  background  iv  Dooley.  If  Dooley 
wants  to  be  smar-rt,  I've  got  t7  play  th' 
fool.  It7s  the  same  with  you  ;  only  you've 
had  yer  chance  at  a  printcess,  later  on 
pla-acin'  the  la-ady  in  a  'nonymous  p'sition 
— which  is  enough  for  anny  man,  Dooley 
or  no  Dooley." 

Hennessey  departed  in  search  of  his 
club  sandwich,  which  was  subsequently 
alluded  to  in  my  bill,  and  for  which  I  paid 
with  pleasure,  for  Hennessey  is  a  good  fel 
low.  I  then  found  myself  listening  to  the 
conversation  between  Dolly  and  Dooley. 

"  Roscommon,  of  course/7  Dolly  was  say 
ing.  What  marvellous  adaptability  that 
woman  has  !  "  How  could  you  think,  my 
dear  cousin,  that  I  belonged  to  the  farmer 
Dooleys  ?" 

"I  t7ought  as  much,77  said  Mr.  Dooley, 
genially,  "now  that  I7ve  seen  ye.  Whin 
you  put  th7  wor-rds  f  at  home '  on  yer 
car-rd,  I  had  me  doots.  No  Dooley  iv  th' 
right  sor-rt  iver  liked  annyt'ing  a  land 
lord  gave  him  ;  an7  whin  j'  expreshed  satis- 
152 


DOLLY    VISITS    CHICAGO 

faction  wid  th'  Hippojorium,  I  didn't  at 
first  t'ink  ye  was  a  true  Dooley.  Since  I've 
seen  ye,  I  love  ye  properly,  ma'am — like 
th'  cousin  I  am.  I've  read  iv  ye,  just  as 
I've  read  iv  yer  hoosband,  Cousin  Roopert 
here  be  marritch,  in  th'  biojographies  of 
Mr.  Ant'ny  Hawp,  an'  while  I  cudn't  help 
likin'  ye,  I  must  say  I  didn't  t'ink  ye  was 
very  deep  on  th'  surface,  an'  when  I  read 
iv  your  elopin'  with  Cousin  Hoop,  I  says 
to  Hennessey,  I  says,  '  Hennessey,'  I  says, 
1  that's  all  right ,  they'd  bote  iv  'em  better 
die,  but  let  us  not  be  asashinators,'  I  says  ; 
Met  'em  be  joined  in  marritch.  That's 
punishment  enough,'  I  says  to  Hennessey. 
Ye  see,  Miss  Dooley,  I  have  been  marrit 
meself." 

"  But  I  have  found  married  life  far  from 
punishment/'  I  heard  Dolly  say.  "I  fear 
you're  a  sad  pessimist,  Mr.  Dooley,"  she 
added. 

"I'm  not/'  Mr,  Dooley  replied.  "  I'm 
a  Jimmycrat  out  an'  out,  if  ye  refer  to  me 
politics ;  but  if  your  remark  is  a  reflec 
tion  on  me  religion,  let  me  tell  ye,  ma'am, 
153 


THE    DREAMERS:     A    CLUB 

that,  like  all  me  countrymen,  in  this  beauti 
ful  land,  I'm  a  Uni-tarrian,  an'  prood  iv  it." 
I  ventured  to  interpose  at  this  point. 
"  Dooley,"  said  I,  "your  cousin  Roop, 
as  you  call  him,  is  very  glad  to  meet  you, 
whatever  your  politics  or  your  religion." 
"Mosht  people  are,"  said  he,  dryly. 
"  That  shows  good  taste,"  said  I.    "  But 
how  about  your  book  ?    It  has  been  ac 
cepted  on  the  strength  of  its  illustrations, 
you  say.     How  about  them  ?     Can  we  see 
them  anywhere  ?   Are  they  on  exhibition?" 
"  You  can  not  only  see  thim,  but  you 
can  drink  'em  free  anny  time  you  come 
out  to  Archie  Road,"  Dooley  replied,  cor 
dially." 

"  Drink— a  picture  ?"  I  asked. 

"Yis,"  said   Dooley.     "  Didn't  ye  iver 

hear  iv  dhrinkin'  in  a  picture,  Cousin  Roo- 

pert  ?     Didn't  ye  hear  th'  tark  about  th' 

'  Angelus '  whin  'twas  here  ?    Ye  cud  hear 

th'  bells  ringin'  troo  th'  paint  iv  it.     Ye 

cud  almost  hear  th'  couple  in  front  just 

back  iv  th'  varnish  quar'lin  as  t'whether 

'twas  th'  Angelus  er  the  facthery  bell  that 

154 


RAPE   YOUR  HOOSBAND  HOME 


DOLLY    VISITS    CHICAGO 

was  goin'  off.  'Twas  big  an'  little  felt 
th'  inflooance  iv  Misther  Miller's  jaynius, 
just  be  lukin'  at  ut — though  as  fer  me,  th' 
fir-rst  time  I  see  the  t'ing  I  says,  says  I, 
'Is  ut  lukin'  for  bait  to  go  fishin'  with 
they  are  ?'  I  says.  '  Can't  ye  hear  the 
pealin'  iv  the  bells  ?'  says  Hennessey,  who 
was  with  me.  '  That  an'  more,'  I  says.  '  I 
can  hear  the  pealin'  o'  th'  petayties,'  I  says. 
'  Do  ye  dhrink  in  th'  feelin'  iv  it  ?'  says 
Hennessey.  '  Naw,  t'ank  ye,'  I  says.  '  I'm 
not  thirsty,'  I  says.  '  Besides,  I've  swore  off 
dhrinkin'  ile-paintin's,'  I  says.  '  Wather- 
coolers  is  gud  enough  fer  me,'  I  says.  An' 
wid  that  we  wint  back  to  the  Road.  But 
that  was  th'  fir-rst  time  I  iver  heard  iv 
dhrinkin'  a  work  iv  ar-rt." 

"But  some  of  the  things  you — ah — you 
Americans  drink/'  put  in  Dolly,  "are 
works  of  art,  my  dear  Mr.  Dooley.  Your 
cousin  Rupert  gave  me  a  cocktail  at  din 
ner  last  night— 

"  Ye've  hit  ut,  Miss  Dooley,"  returned 
the  philosopher,  with  a  beautiful  enthu 
siasm.  "  Ye've  hit  ut  square.  I  see 
157 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

now  y're  a  thrue  Dooley.  An'  wid  yer 
kind  permission  I'll  dedicate  me  book  to 
ye.  Ut's  cocktails  that  book's  about, 
ma'am.  Fifty  Cocktails  I  Have  Met  is  th' 
na-ame  iv  ut.  An'  whin  I  submitted  th' 
mannyscrip'  wid  th'  illusthrations  to  the 
publisher,  he  dhrank  'em  all,  an'  he  says, 
'  Dooley/  he  says,  '  ut's  a  go.  I'll  do  yer 
book,'  he  says,  'an'  I'll  pay  ye  wan  hoon- 
dred  an'  siventy-five  per  cent./  he  says. 
'  Set  'em  up  again,  Dooley/  he  says ;  an' 
I  mixed  'em.  '  I  t'ink,  Dooley/  he  says, 
af  fcher  goin'  troo  th'  illusthrations  th'  sec 
ond  toime — '  I  t'ink/  he  says,  fye'd  ought 
to  get  two  hoondred  an'  wan  per  cent,  on 
th'  retail  price  iv  th'  book/  he  says. 
'  Can't  I  take  a  bottle  iv  these  illusthra 
tions  to  me  office  ?'  he  says.  '  I'd  like  to 
look  'em  over/  he  says ;  an'  I  mixed  'im 
up  a  quar-rt  iv  th'  illusthrations  to  thr 
chapther  on  th'  Mar-rtinney,  an'  sent  him 
back  to  his  partner  in  th'  ambylanch/' 

"I  shall  look  forward  to  the  publica 
tion  of  your  book  with  much  interest,  Mr. 
Dooley/'  said  Dolly.     "  Now  that  I  have 
158 


MIXING   ILLUSTRATIONS 


DOLLY    VISITS    CHICAGO 

discovered  onr  consulship,  I  am  even  more 
interested  in  yon  than  I  was  before  ;  and 
let  me  tell  yon  that,  before  I  met  yon, 
I  thonght  of  yon  as  the  most  vital  fignre 
in  American  hnmor  that  has  been  pro- 
dnced  in  many  years." 

"I  know  nothin'  iv  American  hnmor/' 
said  Dooley,  "for  I  haven't  met  anny  late 
ly,  an'  I  know  nothin'  iv  victuals  save 
what  I  ate,  an'  me  appytite  is  as  satisfoid 
wid  itself  as  Hobson  is  wid  th'  kisses 
brawt  onto  him  by  th'  sinkin'  iv  th' 
Merrimickinley.  But  for  yon  an'  Misther 
Rassendyll,  ma'am,  Fve  nothin'  but  good 
wishes  an'  ah — illusthrations  to  me  book 
whenever  ye  give  yer  orders.  Kape  your 
hoosband  home,  Miss  Dooley,"  he  added. 
"He's  scrapped  wanst  too  often  already 
wi'  th'  Ruraltarriers,  an'  he's  been  killed 
off  wanst  by  Mr.  Ant'ny  Hawp  ;  but  he'll 
niver  die  if  ye  only  kape  him  home.  If 
he  goes  out  he'll  git  fightin'  agin.  If  he 
attimpts  a  sayquil  to  the  sayqnil,  he's  dead 
sure  enough  !" 

And  with  this  Dolly  and  Dooley  parted. 
L  161 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

For  myself,  Rupert  Rassendyll,  I  think 
Dooley's  advice  was  good,  and  as  long  as 
Dolly  will  keep  me  home,  I'll  stay.  For 
is  it  not  better  to  be  the  happy  husband 
of  Dolly  of  the  Dialogues,  than  to  be  go 
ing  about  like  a  knight  of  the  Middle 
Ages  clad  in  the  evening  dress  of  the  nine 
teenth  century,  doing  impossible  things  ? 

As  for  Dooley's  impression  of  Dolly,  I 
can  only  quote  what  I  heard  he  had  said 
after  meeting  her. 

"She's  a  Dooley  sure,"  said  he,  being 
novel  to  compliment.  And  -I  am  glad  she 
is,  for  despite  the  charms  of  Flavia  of 
pleasant  memory,  there's  nobody  like  Dol 
ly  for  me,  and  if  Dolly  can  only  be  ac 
knowledged  by  the  Dooleys,  her  fame,  I 
am  absolutely  confident,  is  assured. 


IX 
WHICH    YELLOW   JOURNALISM    CREEPS 


THE  applause  which  followed  the  read 
ing  of  the  Dooley  Dialogue  showed  very 
clearly  that,  among  the  diners  at  least, 
neither  Dooley  nor  Dolly  had  waned  in 
popularity.  If  the  dilution,  the  faint  echo 
of  the  originals,  evoked  such  applause,  how 
potent  must  have  been  the  genius  of  the 
men  who  first  gave  life  to  Dooley  and  the 
fair  Dolly  ! 

"That's  good  stuff,  Greenwich/7  said 
Billie  Jones.  "You  must  have  eaten  a 
particularly  digestible  meal.  Now  for  the 
tenth  ball.  Who  has  it  ?" 

"I,"  said  Dick  Snobbe,  rising  majesti 
cally  from  his  chair.  "  And  I  can  tell  you 
what  it  is ;  I  had  a  tough  time  of  it  in  my 
163 


THE    DREAMERS:     A    CLUB 

dream,  as  yon  will  perceive  when  I  recite 
to  you  the  story  of  my  experiences  at  the 
battle  of  Manila." 

" Great  Scott,  Dick!"  cried  Bedford 
Parke.  "  Yon  weren't  in  that,  were  you  ?" 
.  "Sir,"  returned  Dick,  "I  was  not  only 
in  it,  I  was  the  thing  itself.  I  was  the 
war  correspondent  of  the  Sunday  Whirnal, 
attached  to  Dewey's  fleet." 

Whereupon  the  talented  Mr.  Snobbe 
proceeded  to  read  the  following  cable  de 
spatch  from  the  special  correspondent  of 
the  Whirnal: 

MANILA   FALLS 

THE  SPANISH   FLEET   DESTROYED 

THE  SPECIAL  CORRESPONDENT  OF  THE 
WHIRNAL 

AIDED  BY  COMMODORE  DEWEY  AND  HIS  FLEET 
CAPTURES  THE  PHILIPPINES 

MANILA,  May  1,  1898.  —  I  have  glori 
ous  news.     I  have  this  day  destroyed  the 
Spanish  fleet  and  captured  the  Philippine 
Islands.     According   to   my   instructions 
164 


YELLOW    JOURNALISM 

from  the  City  Editor  of  the  Whirnal,  I 
boarded  the  Olympia,  the  flag-ship  of  the 
fleet  under  Commodore  Dewey  at  Hong 
kong,  on  Wednesday  last.  Upon  reading 
my  credentials  the  Commodore  immedi 
ately  surrendered  the  command  of  the 
fleet  to  me,  and  retired  to  his  state-room, 
where  he  has  since  remained.  I  deemed 
it  well  to  keep  him  there  until  after  the 
battle  was  over,  fearing  lest  he  should  an 
noy  me  with  suggestions,  and  not  know 
ing  but  that  he  might  at  any  time  spread 
dissension  among  the  officers  and  men, 
who,  after  the  habit  of  seamen,  frequently 
manifest  undue  affection  and  sympathy 
for  a  deposed  commander.  I  likewise, 
according  to  your  wishes,  concealed  from 
the  officers  and  crew  the  fact  that  the 
Commodore  had  been  deposed,  furthering 
the  concealment  by  myself  making  up  as 
Dewey.  Indeed,  it  was  not  until  after 
the  battle  this  morning  that  any  but 
Dewey  and  the  ship's  barber  were  aware 
of  the  substitution,  since  my  disguise  was 
perfect.  The  ship's  barber  I  had  to  take 
165 


THE    DREAMERS:     A    CLU13 

into  my  confidence,  for  unfortunately  on 
leaving  Hong-kong  I  had  forgotten  to 
provide  myself  with  a  false  mustache,  so 
that  in  concealing  the  deposition  of  the 
Commodore  by  myself  assuming  his  per 
sonality  I  was  compelled  to  have  the  gen 
tleman's  mustache  removed  from  his  up 
per  lip  and  transferred  to  my  own.  This 
the  barber  did  with  neatness  and  despatch, 
I  having  first  chloroformed  the  Commo 
dore,  from  whom  some  resistance  might 
have  been  expected,  owing  to  his  peculiar 
temperament.  Fortunately  the  fellow  was 
an  expert  wig-maker,  and  within  an  hour 
of  the  shaving  of  Dewey  I  was  provided 
with  a  mustache  which  could  not  fail  to 
be  recognized  as  the  Commodore's,  since  it 
was  indeed  that  very  same  object.  When 
five  hundred  miles  at  sea  I  dropped  the 
barber  overboard,  fearing  lest  he  should 
disturb  my  plans  by  talking  too  much.  I 
hated  to  do  it,  but  in  the  interest  of  the 
Whirnal  I  hold  life  itself  as  of  little  con 
sequence,  particularly  if  it  is  the  life  of 
some  one  else  —  and  who  knows  but  the 
166 


THE   SHIP'S  UAKBEK  AT   WOKK 


YELLOW    JOURNALISM 

poor  fellow  was  an  expert  swimmer,  and 
has  by  this  time  reached  Borneo  or  some 
other  bit  of  dry  land  ?  He  was  alive  when 
I  last  saw  him,  and  yelling  right  lustily.  If 
it  so  happen  that  he  has  swum  ashore  some 
where,  kindly  let  me  know  at  your  con 
venience  ;  for  beneath  a  correspondent's 
exterior  I  have  a  warm  heart,  and  it  some 
times  troubles  me  to  think  that  the  poor 
fellow  may  have  foundered,  since  the  sea 
was  stressful  and  the  nearest  dry  point 
was  four  hundred  and  sixty  knots  away 
to  S.E.  by  N.GL,  while  the  wind  was  blow 
ing  N.W.  by  N.Y.C.  &  H.E.R.  But  to 
my  despatch. 

Dewey  done  for,  despoiled  of  his  mus 
tache  and  rifled  of  his  place,  with  a  heavy 
sea  running  and  a  dense  fog  listing  to 
starboard,  I  summoned  my  officers  to  the 
flag-ship,  and,  on  the  evening  of  April  30th, 
the  fog-horns  of  Cavite  having  indicated 
the  approach  of  the  Philippine  coast,  gave 
them,  one  and  all,  their  final  instructions. 
These  were,  in  brief,  never  to  do  anything 
without  consulting  with  me. 
169 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

' '  To  facilitate  matters,  gentlemen,"  said 
I,  ordering  an  extra  supply  of  grog  for  the 
captains,  and  milk  punches  for  the  lieu 
tenants,  "  we  must  connect  the  various 
vessels  of  the  fleet  with  telephone  wires. 
Who  will  undertake  this  perilous  duty  ?" 

They  rose  up  as  one  man,  and,  with  the 
precision  of  a  grand-opera  chorus,  replied : 
"Commodore" — for  they  had  not  pene 
trated  my  disguise — "call  upon  us.  If 
you  will  provide  the  wires  and  the  'phones, 
we  will  do  the  rest."  And  they  followed 
these  patriotic  words  with  cheers  for  me. 

Their  heroism  so  affected  me  that  I  had 
difficulty  in  frowning  upon  the  head-but 
ler's  suggestion  that  my  glass  should  be 
filled  again. 

"  Gentlemen,"  said  I,  huskily — for  I  was 
visibly  affected  —  "I  have  provided  for 
all.  I  could  not  do  otherwise  and  re 
main  myself.  You  will  find  ten  thousand 
miles  of  wire  and  sixty-six  telephones  in 
the  larder/7 

That  night  every  ship  in  the  fleet  was 
provided  with  telephone  service.  I  ap- 
170 


YELLOW    JOURNALISM 

pointed  the  Olympia  to   be   the    central 
office,  so  that  I  might  myself  control  all 
the  messages,  or  at  least  hear  them  as  they 
passed  to  and  fro.   In  the  absence  of  ladies 
from  the  fleet,  I  appointed  a  somewhat 
effeminate  subaltern  to  the  post  of  "Hello 
Officer,"  with   complete  control  over  the 
switch-board.     And,  as  it  transpired,  this 
was  a  very  wise  precaution,  because  the 
central  office  was  placed  in  the  hold,  and 
the  poor  little  chap's  courage  was  so  in 
clined  to  ooze  that  in  the  midst  of  the 
tight  he  was  content  to  sit  below  the  wa 
ter-line  at  his  post,  and  not  run  about 
the  promenade-deck  giving  orders  while 
under  fire.     I  have  cabled  the  President 
about  him,  and  have  advised  his  promo 
tion.     His  heroic  devotion  to  the  switch 
board  ought  to  make  him  a  naval  attache 
to  some  foreign  court,  at  least.     I  trust 
his  bravery  will  ultimately  result  in  his 
being   sent   to    the   Paris    Exposition    as 
charge  d'affaires  in  the  Erie  Canal  depart 
ment  of  the  New  York  State  exhibit. 
But  to  return  to  my  despatch — which 
171 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

from  this  point  must  disregard  space  and 
move  quickly.  Passing  Cape  Bolinao,  we 
soon  reached  Subig  Bay,  fifty  miles  from 
Manila.  Recognizing  the  cape  by  the 
crop  of  hemp  on  its  brow,  I  rang  up  the 
Boston  and  the  Concord. 

"Search  Subig  Bay/'  I  ordered. 

"  Who's  this  ?"  came  the  answer  from 
the  other  end. 

"  Nevermind  who  I  am, "said  I.  "Search 
Subig  Bay  for  Spaniards." 

"  Hello  !"  said  the  Boston. 

"Who  the  deuce  are  you?"  cried  the 
Concord. 

"  Fm  seventeen-five-six,"  I  replied,  with 
some  sarcasm,  for  that  was  not  my  num 
ber. 

"  I  want  sixteen-two-one,"  retorted  the 
Boston. 

"  Ring  off,"  said  the  Concord.  "  What 
do  you  mean  by  giving  me  seventeeu-five- 
six  ?" 

"Hello,  Boston  and  Concord,"  I  put  in 
in  commanding  tones.  "I'm  Dewey." 

This  is  the  only  false  statement  I  ever 
•  172 


YELLOW    JOURNALISM 

made,  but  it  was  in  the  interests  of  my 
country,  and  my  reply  was  electrical  in 
its  effect.  The  Boston  immediately  blew 
off  steam,  and  the  Concord  sounded  all 
hands  to  quarters. 

"  What  do  yon  want,  Commodore  ?" 
they  asked  simultaneously. 

"Search  Subig  Bay  for  Spaniards,  as  I 
have  already  ordered  you,"  I  replied,  "  and 
woe  be  unto  you  if  you  don't  find  any." 

"  What  do  you  want  'em  for,  Commo 
dore  ?"  asked  the  Boston. 

"  To  engage,  you  idiot,"  I  replied, 
scornfully.  "  What  did  you  suppose — to 
teach  me  Spanish  ?" 

Both  vessels  immediately  piped  all  hands 
on  deck  and  set  off.  Two  hours  later  they 
returned,  and  the  telephone  subaltern  re 
ported,  "No  Spaniards  found." 

"  Why  not  ?"  I  demanded. 

"  All  gone  to  Cuba,"  replied  the  Boston. 
"  Shall  we  pipe  all  hands  to  Cuba  ?" 

"Wires  too  short  to  penetrate  without 
a  bust,"  replied  the  Concord. 

"  On  to  Manila!"  was  my  answer.  "  Ding 
173 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

the  torpedoes — go  ahead !    Give  ns  Span 
iards  or  give  us  death  !" 

These  words  inspired  every  ship  in  the 
line,,  and  we  immediately  strained  for 
ward,  except  the  McOulloch,  which  I  de 
spatched  at  once  to  Hong-kong  to  cable 
my  last  words  to  you  in  time  for  the  Adi 
rondack  edition  of  your  Sunday  issue 
leaving  New  York  Thursday  afternoon. 

The  rest  of  us  immediately  proceeded. 
In  a  short  while,  taking  advantage  of  the 
darkness  for  which  I  had  provided  by 
turning  the  clock  back  so  that  the  sun  by 
rising  at  the  usual  hour  should  not  dis 
close  our  presence,  we  turned  Corregidor 
and  headed  up  the  Boca  Grande  towards 
Manila.  As  we  were  turning  Corregidor 
the  telephone -bell  rang,  and  somebody 
who  refused  to  give  his  name,  but  stating 
that  he  was  aboard  the  Petrel,  called  me  up. 

"  Hello!"  said  I. 

"  Is  this  Dewey  ?"  said  the  Petrel 

"Yes,"  said  I. 

"There  are  torpedoes  ahead,"  said  the 
Petrel. 

174 


YELLOW    JOURNALISM 

"What  of  it  ?"  said  I. 

"  How  shall  we  treat  'em  ?" 

''Blow  'em  off — to  soda  water,"  I  an 
swered,  sarcastically. 

"  Thank  you,  sir,"  the  Petrel  replied, 
as  she  rang  off. 

Then  somebody  from  the  Baltimore 
rang  me  up. 

"Commodore  Dewey/'  said  the  Balti 
more,  "there  are  mines  in  the  harbor." 

"Well,  what  of  it  ?"  I  replied. 

"  What  shall  we  do  ?"  asked  the  Balti 
more. 

"  Treat  them  coldly,  as  they  do  in  the 
Klondike,"  said  I. 

"But  they  aren't  gold-mines,"  replied 
the  Baltimore. 

"Then  salt  'em/'  said  I,  dryly.  "Apply 
for  a  certificate  of  incorporation,  water 
your  stock,  sell  out,  and  retire." 

"Thank  you,  Commodore,"  the  Balti 
more  answered.  "How  many  shares  shall 
we  put  you  down  for  ?" 

"None,"  said  I.  "But  if  you'll  use 
your  surplus  to  start  a  life-insurance  com- 
175 


THE    DREAMERS:     A    CLUB 

pany,  I'll  take  out  a  policy  for  forty-eight 
hours,  and  send  you  my  demand  note  to 
pay  for  the  first  premium." 

I  mention  this  merely  to  indicate  to 
your  readers  that  I  felt  myself  in  a  posi 
tion  of  extreme  peril,  and  did  not  forget 
my  obligations  to  my  family.  It  is  a  small 
matter,  but  if  you  will  search  the  pages  of 
history  you  will  see  that  in  the  midst  of 
the  greatest  dangers  the  greatest  heroes 
have  thought  of  apparently  insignificant 
details. 

At  this  precise  moment  we  came  in 
sight  of  the  fortresses  of  Manila.  Sig 
nalling  the  Raleigh  to  heave  to,  I  left  the 
flag-ship  and  jumped  aboard  the  cruiser, 
where  I  discharged  with  my  own  hand  the 
after-forecastle  four-inch  gun.  The  shot 
struck  Corregidor,  and,  glancing  off,  as 
I  had  designed,  caromed  on  the  smoke 
stack  of  the  Reina  Crist-ma,  the  flag-ship 
of  Admiral  Montojo.  The  Admiral,  un 
accustomed  to  such  treatment,  immedi 
ately  got  out  of  bed,  and,  putting  on  his 
pajamas,  appeared  on  the  bridge. 
176 


YELLOW    JOURNALISM 

"Who  smoked  our  struck-stack  ?"  he 
demanded,  in  broken  English. 

"  The  enemy/'  cried  his  crew,  with  some 
nervousness.  I  was  listening  to  their 
words  through  the  megaphone. 

"Then  let  her  sink,"  said  he,  clutch 
ing  his  brow  sadly  with  his  clinched  fist. 
"Far  be  it  from  me  to  stay  afloat  in 
Manila  Bay  on  the  1st  of  May,  and  so 
cast  discredit  on  history !" 

The  Reina  Crist ina  immediately  sank, 
according  to  the  orders  of  the  Admiral, 
and  I  turned  my  attention  to  the  Don 
Juan  de  Austria.  Rowing  across  the 
raging  channel  to  the  Baltimore,  I  boarded 
her  and  pulled  the  lanyard  of  the  port 
boom  forty-two.  The  discharge  was  ter 
rific. 

"  What  has  happened  ?"  I  asked,  coolly, 
as  the  explosion  exploded.  "  Did  we  hit 
her  ?" 

"'We  did, your  honor,"  said  the  BoVn's 
mate,  "square  in  the  eye;  only,  Commo 
dore,  it  ain't  a  her  this  time — it's  a  him. 
It's  the  Don  Juan  de — 
179 


THE     DREAMERS:     A    CLUB 

"  Never  mind  the  sex/'  I  cried.  "  Has 
she  sank  ?" 

"No,  sir,"  replied  the  Bo's'n's  mate, 
"she  'ain't  sank  yet.  "She's  a-waiting 
orders." 

"Fly  signals  to  sink/'  said  I,  sternly, 
for  I  had  resolved  that  she  should  go 
down. 

They  did  so,  and  the  Don  Juan  de 
Austria  immediately  disappeared  beneath 
the  waves.  Her  commander  evidently 
realized  that  I  meant  what  I  signalled. 

"Are  there  any  more  of  the  enemy 
afloat  ?"  I  demanded,  jumping  from  the 
deck  of  the  Baltimore  to  that  of  the  Con 
cord. 

"  No,  Commodore,"  replied  the  captain 
of  the  latter. 

"  Then  signal  the  enemy  to  charter  two 
more  gunboats  and  have  'em  sent  out.  I 
can't  be  put  off  with  two  boats  when  I'm 
ready  to  sink  four,"  I  replied. 

The  Concord  immediately  telephoned  to 
the  Spanish  commandant  at  the  Manila 
Cafe  de  la  Paix,  who  as  quickly  chartered 
180 


SINKING   THE    CA3TILLA 


YELLOW    JOURNALISM 

the  Castillo,  and  the  Velasco  —  two  very 
good  boats  that  had  recently  come  in  in 
ballast  with  the  idea  of  loading  up  witli 
bananas  and  tobacco. 

While  waiting  for  these  vessels  to  come 
out  and  be  sunk,  I  ordered  all  hands  to 
breakfast,  thus  reviving  their  falling  cour 
age.  It  was  a  very  good  breakfast,  too. 
We  had  mush  and  hominy  and  potatoes 
in  every  style,  beefsteak,  chops,  liver  and 
bacon,  chicken  hash,  buckwheat  cakes 
and  fish-balls,  coffee,  tea,  rolls,  toast, 
and  brown  bread. 

Just  as  we  were  eating  the  latter  the 
Castillo,  and  Velasco  came  out.  I  fired  my 
revolver  at  the  Castilla  and  threw  a  fish- 
ball  at  the  Velasco.  Both  immediately 
burst  into  flames. 

Manila  was  conquered. 

The  fleet  gone,  the  city  fell.  It  not 
only  fell,  but  slid,  and  hy  nightfall  Old 
Glory  waved  over  the  citadel. 

The  foe  was  licked. 

To-morrow  I  am  to  see  Dewey  again. 

I  think  I  shall  resign  to-night. 
183 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

P.  S. — Please  send  word  to  the  magazines 
that  all  articles  by  Dewey  must  be  written 
by  Me.  Terms,  $500  per  word.  The 
strain  has  been  worth  it. 


THE     MYSTERY     OF     PINKHAM'S    DIAMOND 
STUD 

Being  the  tale  told  by  the  holder  of  the  eleventh  ball, 
Mr.  Fulton  Streete 

"  IT  is  the  little  things  that  tell  in  de 
tective  work,  my  dear  Watson/'  said  Sher 
lock  Holmes  as  we  sat  over  our  walnuts 
and  coffee  one  bitter  winter  night  shortly 
before  his  unfortunate  departure  to  Swit 
zerland,  whence  he  never  returned. 

"  I  suppose  that  is  so/'  said  I,  pulling 
away  upon  the  very  excellent  stogie  which 
mine  host  had  provided  —  one  made  in 
Pittsburg  in  1885,  and  purchased  by 
Holmes,  whose  fine  taste  in  tobacco  had 
induced  him  to  lay  a  thousand  of  these 
down  in  his  cigar-cellar  for  three,  years, 
185 


THE    DREAMERS:     A    CLUB 

and  then  keep  them  in  a  refrigerator, 
overlaid  with  a  cloth  soaked  in  Chateau 
Yquem  wine  for  ten.  The  result  may  be 
better  imagined  than  described.  Suffice 
it  to  say  that  my  head  did  not  recover  for 
three  days,  and  the  ash  had  to  be  cut  off 
the  stogie  with  a  knife.  "I  suppose  so, 
my  dear  Holmes,"  I  repeated,  taking  my 
knife  and  cutting  three  inches  of  the 
stogie  off  and  casting  it  aside,  furtively, 
lest  he  should  think  I  did  not  appreciate 
the  excellence  of  the  tobacco,  "but  it  is 
not  given  to  all  of  us  to  see  the  little 
things.  Is  it,  now  ?'' 

"Yes,"  he  said,  rising  and  picking  up 
the  rejected  portion  of  the  stogie.  "  We 
all  see  everything  that  goes  on,  but  we 
don't  all  know  it.  We  all  hear  everything 
that  goes  on,  but  we  are  not  conscious  of 
the  fact.  For  instance,  at  this  present 
moment  there  is  somewhere  in  this  world 
a  man  being  set  upon  by  assassins  and 
yelling  lustily  for  help.  Now  his  yells 
create  a  certain  atmospheric  disturbance. 
Sound  is  merely  vibration,  and,  once  set 
186 


PINKHAM'S    DIAMOND    STUD 

going,  these  vibrations  will  run  on  and  on 
and  on  in  ripples  into  the  infinite — that 
is,  they  will  never  stop,  and  sooner  or  later 
these  vibrations  must  reach  our  ears.  We 
may  not  know  it  when  they  do,  but  they 
will  do  so  none  the  less.  If  the  man  is  in 
the  next  room,  we  will  hear  the  yells  al 
most  simultaneously  —  not  quite,  but  al 
most — with  their  utterance.  If  the  man 
is  in  Timbuctoo,  the  vibrations  may  not 
reach  us  for  a  little  time,  according  to  the 
speed  with  which  they  travel.  So  with 
sight.  Sight  seems  limited,  but  in  real 
ity  it  is  not.  Vox  populi,  vox  Dei.  If 
vox,  why  not  oculus  9  It  is  a  simple  prop 
osition,  then,  that  the  eye  of  the  people 
being  the  eye  of  God,  the  eye  of  God  be 
ing  all -seeing,  therefore  the  eye  of  the 
people  is  all-seeing — Q.  E.  D." 

I  gasped,  and  Holmes,  cracking  a  wal 
nut,  gazed  into  the  fire  for  a  moment. 

"It  all  comes  down,  then,"  I  said,  "to 
the  question,  who  are  the  people  ?" 

Holmes  smiled  grimly.  "All  men/'  he 
replied,  shortly;  "and  when  I  say  all 
187 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 
men,,  I  mean  all  creatures  who  can  rea 


son." 


"  Does  that  include  women  ?"  I  asked. 

"Certainly,"  he  said.  "Indubitably. 
The  fact  that  women  don't  reason  does 
not  prove  that  they  can't.  I  can  go  up  in 
a  balloon  if  I  wish  to,  but  I  don't.  I  can 
read  an  American  newspaper  comic  sup 
plement,  but  I  don't.  So  it  is  with  wom 
en.  Women  can  reason,  and  therefore 
they  have  a  right  to  be  included  in  the 
classification  whether  they  do  or  don't." 

"  Quite  so/'  was  all  I  could  think  of  to 
say  at  the  moment.  The  extraordinary 
logic  of  the  man  staggered  me,  and  I  again 
began  to  believe  that  the  famous  math 
ematician  who  said  that  if  Sherlock 
Holmes  attempted  to  prove  that  five  ap 
ples  plus  three  peaches  made  four  pears, 
he  would  not  venture  to  dispute  his  con 
clusions,  was  wise.  (This  was  the  famous 
Professor  Zoggenhoffer,  of  the  Leipsic. 
School  of  Moral  Philosophy  and  Stenog 
raphy. — ED.) 

"Now  you  agree,  my  dear  Watson/'  he 
188 


PINK  HAM'S    DIAMOND    STUD 

said,  "  that  I  have  proved  that  we  see 
everything  ?" 

«  Well—"  I  began. 

"Whether  we  are  conscious  of  it  or 
not  ?"  he  added,  lighting  the  gas-log,  for 
the  cold  was  becoming  intense. 

"  From  that  point  of  view,  I  suppose  so 
— yes,"  I  replied,  desperately. 

"Well,  then,  this  being  granted,  con 
sciousness  is  all  that  is  needed  to  make 
us  fully  informed  on  any  point." 

"No,"  I  said,  with  some  positiveness. 
"The  American  people  are  very  conscious, 
but  I  can't  say  that  generally  they  are 
well-informed." 

I  had  an  idea  this  would  knock  him  out, 
as  the  Bostonians  say,  but  counted  with 
out  my  host.  He  merely  laughed. 

"  The  American  is  only  self-conscious. 
Therefore  he  is  well-informed  only  as  to 
self,"  he  said. 

"  You've  proved  your  point,  Sherlock," 
I  said.  "  Go  on.  What  else  have  you 
proved  ?" 

"That  it  is  the  little  things  that  tell," 
189 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

he  replied.  "  Which  all  men  would  realize 
in  a  moment  if  they  could  see  the  little 
things  —  and  when  I  say  'if  they  could 
see/  I  of  course  mean  if  they  could  be 
conscious  of  them." 

"  Very  true,"  said  I. 

"  And  I  have  the  gift  of  consciousness," 
he  added. 

I  thought  he  had,  and  I  said  so.  "  But," 
I  added,  "give  me  a  concrete  example." 
It  had  been  some  weeks  since  I  had  listened 
to  any  of  his  detective  stories,  and  I  was 
athirst  for  another. 

He  rose  up  and  walked  over  to  his 
pigeon-holes,  each  labelled  with  a  letter, 
in  alphabetical  sequence. 

"I  have  only  to  refer  to  any  of  these 
to  do  so,"  he  said.  "  Choose  your  letter." 

"Really,  Holmes,"  said  I,  "I  don't 
need  to  do  that.  I'll  believe  all  you  say. 
In  fact,  I'll  write  it  up  and  sign  my 
name  to  any  statement  you  choose  to 
make." 

"  Choose  your  letter,  Watson,"  he  re 
torted.  "  You  and  I  are  on  terms  that 
190 


THE   LAMP-POSTS  WERE  TWISTED 


PINKHAM'S    DIAMOND    STUD 

make  flattery  impossible.  Is  it  F,  J,  P, 
Q,  or  Z  ?" 

He  fixed  his  eye  penetratingly  upon  me. 
It  seemed  for  the  moment  as  if  I  were  hyp 
notized,  and  as  his  gaze  fairly  stabbed  me 
with  its  intensity,  through  my  mind  there 
ran  the  suggestion  "  Choose  J,  choose  J, 
choose  J."  To  choose  J  became  an  obses 
sion.  To  relieve  my  mind,  I  turned  my 
eye  from  his  and  looked  at  the  fire.  Each 
flame  took  on  the  form  of  the  letter  J.  I 
left  my  chair  and  walked  to  the  window 
and  looked  out.  The  lamp -posts  were 
twisted  into  the  shape  of  the  letter  J.  I 
returned,  sat  down,  gulped  down  my 
brandy -and -soda,  and  looked  up  at  the 
portraits  of  Holmes's  ancestors  on  the 
wall.  They  were  all  J's.  But  I  was  re 
solved  never  to  yield,  and  I  gasped  out, 
desperately, 

"Z  I" 

" Thanks,"  he  said,  calmly.    "Z  be  it. 

I  thought  you  would.     Eeflex  hypnotism, 

my  dear  Watson,  is  my  forte.    If  I  wish  a 

man  to  choose  Q,  B  takes  hold  upon  him. 

N  J93 


THE    DREAMERS:     A    CLUB 

If  I  wish  him  to  choose  K,  A  fills  his 
mind.  Have  you  ever  observed  how  the 
mind  of  man  repels  a  suggestion  and  flees 
to  something  else,  merely  that  it  may 
demonstrate  its  independence  of  another 
mind  ?  Now  I  have  been  suggesting  J  to 
you,  and  you  have  chosen  Z — " 

"You  misunderstood  me,"  I  cried, 
desperately.  "I  did  not  say  Z;  I  said 
P." 

"Quite  so,"  said  he,  with  an  inward 
chuckle.  "  P  was  the  letter  I  wished  you 
to  choose.  If  you  had  insisted  upon  Z, 
I  should  really  have  been  embarrassed. 
See  !"  he  added.  He  removed  the  green- 
ended  box  that  rested  in  the  pigeon-hole 
marked  Z,  and,  opening  it,  disclosed  an 
emptiness. 

"I've  never  had  a  Z  case.  But  P,"  he 
observed,  quietly,  "is  another  thing  alto 
gether." 

Here  he  took  out  the  box  marked  P 
from  the  pigeon-hole,  and,  opening  it,  re 
moved  the  contents — a  single  paper  which 
was  carefully  endorsed,  in  his  own  hand- 
194 


PINKHAM'S    DIAMOND    STUD 

writing,  "The  Mystery  of  Pinkham's  Dia 
mond  Stud." 

"You  could  not  have  selected  a  better 
case,  Watson,"  he  said,  as  he  unfolded 
the  paper  and  scanned  it  closely.  "  One 
would  almost  think  you  had  some  pre 
vision  of  the  fact." 

"I  am  not  aware,"  said  I,  "that  you 
ever  told  the  story  of  Pinkham's  diamond 
stud.  Who  was  Pinkham,  and  what  kind 
of  a  diamond  stud  was  it — first-water  or 
Rhine  ?" 

"Pinkham,"  Holmes  rejoined,  "was  an 
American  millionaire,  living  during  busi 
ness  hours  at  Allegheny  City,  Pennsylva 
nia,  where  he  had  to  wear  a  brilliant  stud 
to  light  him  on  his  way  through  the 
streets,  which  are  so  dark  and  sooty  that 
an  ordinary  search-light  would  not  suffice. 
In  his  leisure  hours,  however,  he  lived  at 
the  Hotel  Walledup-Hystena,  in  NewYork, 
where  he  likewise  had  to  wear  the  same 
diamond  stud  to  keep  him  from  being  a 
marked  man.  Have  you  ever  visited  New 
York,  Watson  ?" 

195 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

"  No,"  said  I. 

"Well,  when  you  do,  spend  a  little  of 
your  time  at  the  Walledup-Hysteria.  It 
is  a  hotel  with  a  population  larger  than 
that  of  most  cities,  with  streets  running 
to  and  from  all  points  of  the  compass  ; 
where  men  and  women  eat  under  condi 
tions  that  Lucullus  knew  nothing  of ; 
where  there  is  a  carpeted  boulevard  on 
which  walk  all  sorts  and  conditions  of 
men ;  where  one  pays  one's  bill  to  the 
dulcet  strains  of  a  string  orchestra  that 
woo  him  into  a  blissful  forgetfulness  of 
its  size  ;  and  where,  by  pressing  a  button 
in  the  wall,  you  may  summon  a  grand 
opera,  or  a  porter  who  on  request  will 
lend  you  enough  money  to  enable  you  and 
your  family  to  live  the  balance  of  your 
days  in  comfort.  In  America  men  have 
been  known  to  toil  for  years  to  amass  a 
fortune  for  the  one  cherished  object  of 
spending  a  week  in  this  Olympian  spot, 
and  then  to  be  content  to  return  to  their 
toil  and  begin  life  anew,  rich  only  in  the 
memory  of  its  luxuries.  It  was  here  that 
196 


PINKHAM'S    DIAMOND    STUD 

I  spent  my  time  when,  some  years  ago, 
I  went  to  the  United  States  to  solve  the 
now  famous  Piano  Case.  You  will  remem 
ber  how  sneak  thieves  stole  a  grand  piano 
from  the  residence  of  one  of  New  York's 
first  families,  while  the  family  was  dining 
in  the  adjoining  room.  While  in  the  city, 
and  indeed  at  the  very  hotel  in  which  I 
stopped,  and  which  I  have  described,  Pink- 
ham's  diamond  stud  disappeared,  and,  hear 
ing  that  I  was  a  guest  at  the  Walled  up- 
Hysteria,  the  owner  appealed  to  me  to 
recover  it  for  him.  I  immediately  took 
the  case  in  hand.  Drastic  questioning  of 
Pinkham  showed  that  beyond  all  question 
he  had  lost  the  stud  in  his  own  apartment. 
He  had  gone  down  to  dinner,  leaving  it 
on  the  centre-table,  following  the  usual 
course  of  most  millionaires,  to  whom  dia 
monds  are  of  no  particular  importance. 
Pinkham  wanted  this  one  only  because  of 
its  associations.  Its  value,  $80,000,  was 
a  mere  bagatelle  in  his  eyes. 

"  Now  of  course,  if  he  positively  left  it 
on  the  table,  it  must  have   been   taken 
197 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

by  some  one  who  had  entered  the  room. 
Investigation  proved  that  the  maid,  a  valet, 
a  fellow  -  millionaire  from  Chicago,  and 
Pinkham's  children  had  been  the  only  ones 
to  do  this.  The  maid  and  the  valet  were 
above  -suspicion.  Their  fees  from  guests 
were  large  enough  to  place  them  beyond 
the  reach  of  temptation.  I  questioned 
them  closely,  and  they  convinced  me  at 
once  of  their  innocence  by  conducting  me 
through  the  apartments  of  other  guests 
wherein  tiaras  of  diamonds  and  necklaces 
of  pearls  —  ropes  in  very  truth — rubies, 
turquoise,  and  emerald  ornaments  of  price 
less  value,  were  scattered  about  in  reck 
less  profusion. 

' ' '  D'  yez  t'ink  oi'd  waste  me  toime  on 
an  eighty-t'ousand-dollar  shtood,  wid  all 
dhis  in  soight  and  moine  for  the  thrubble 
uv  swipin'  ut  ?'  said  the  French  maid. 

"  I  acquitted  her  at  once,  and  the  valet 
similarly  proved  his  innocence,  only  with 
less  of  an  accent,  for  he  was  supposed  to 
be  English,  and  not  French,  as  was  the 
maid,  although  they  both  came  from  Dub- 
198 


HOLMES   IN   DISGUISE   INTERVIEWS  WATTLES 


PINKHAM'S    DIAMOND    STUD 

lin.  This  narrowed  the  suspects  down  to 
Mr.  Jedediah  Wattles,  of  Chicago,  and 
the  children.  Naturally  I  turned  my  at 
tention  to  Wattles.  A  six-year-old  boy 
and  a  four-year-old  girl  could  hardly  be 
suspected  of  stealing  a  diamond  stud.  So 
drawing  on  Pinkham  for  five  thousand 
dollars  to  pay  expenses,  I  hired  a  room  in 
a  tenement-house  in  Rivington  Street — a 
squalid  place  it  was  —  disguised  myself 
with  an  oily,  black,  burglarious  mustache, 
and  dressed  like  a  comic-paper  gambler. 
Then  I  wrote  a  note  to  Wattles,  asking 
him  to  call,  saying  that  I  could  tell  him 
something  to  his  advantage.  He  came, 
and  I  greeted  him  like  a  pal.  '  Wattles,' 
said  I,  '  you've  been  working  this  game  for 
a  long  time,  and  I  know  all  about  you. 
You  are  an  ornament  to  the  profession, 
but  we  diamond-thieves  have  got  to  com 
bine.  Understand  ?'  '  No,  I  don't/  said 
he.  '  Well,  I'll  tell  you,'  said  I.  '  You're 
a  man  of  good  appearance,  and  I  ain't, 
but  I  know  where  the  diamonds  are.  If 
we  work  together,  there's  millions  in  it. 
201 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

Fll  spot  the  diamonds,  and  you  lift  'em, 
eh  ?  Yon  can  do  it,'  I  added,  as  he  began 
to  get  mad.  '  The  ease  with  which  you 
got  away  with  old  Pinky's  stud,  that  Fve 
been  trying  to  pull  for  myself  for  years, 
shows  me  that/ 

' '  I  was  not  allowed  to  go  further.  Wat- 
tles's  indignation  was  great  enough  to 
prove  that  it  was  not  he  who  had  done 
the  deed,  and  after  he  had  thrashed  me 
out  of  my  disguise,  I  pulled  myself  to 
gether  and  said,  '  Mr.  Wattles,  I  am  con 
vinced  that  you  are  innocent.'  As  soon 
as  he  recognized  me  and  realized  my  object 
in  sending  for  him,  he  forgave  me,  and,  I 
must  say,  treated  me  with  great  consider 
ation. 

"  But  my  last  clew  was  gone.  The 
maid,  the  valet,  and  Wattles  were  proved 
innocent.  The  children  alone  remained, 
but  I  could  not  suspect  them.  Neverthe 
less,  on  my  way  back  to  the  hotel  I  bought 
some  rock-candy,  and,  after  reporting  to 
Pinkham,  I  asked  casually  after  the  chil 
dren. 

202 


PINKHAM'S    DIAMOND    STUD 

"'They're  pretty  well/  said  Pinkham. 
'  Billie's  complaining  a  little,  and  the 
doctor  fears  appendicitis,  but  Polly's  all 
right.  I  guess  Billie's  all  right  too.  The 
seventeen-course  dinners  they  serve  in  the 
children's  dining-room  here  aren't  calcu 
lated  to  agree  with  Billie's  digestion,  I 
reckon/ 

"  '  I'd  like  to  see  'em/  said  I.  '  I'm 
very  fond  of  children.' 

"Pinkham  immediately  called  the 
youngsters  in  from  the  nursery.  '  Guess 
what  I've  got/  I  said,  opening  the  pack 
age  of  rock-cand}7.  '  Gee  !'  cried  Billie, 
as  it  caught  his  eye.  '  Gimme  some  !' 
'  Who  gets  first  piece  ?'  said  I.  <  Me  !' 
cried  both.  '  Anybody  ever  had  any  be 
fore  ?'  I  asked.  'He  has/  said  Polly, 
pointing  to  Billie.  The  boy  immediately 
flushed  up.  '  'Ain't,  neither  !'  he  retorted. 
'Yes  you  did,  too/  said  Polly.  '  You  swal- 
lered  that  piece  pop  left  on  the  centre-table 
the  other  night!'  'Well,  anyhow,  it  was 
only  a  little  piece/  said  Billie.  '  An'  it 
tasted  like  glass/  he  added.  Handing  the 
205 


THE    DREAMERS:     A    CLUB 

candy  to  Polly,  I  picked  Billie  up  and 
carried  him  to  his  father. 

"'Mr.  Pinkham,'  said  I,  handing  the 
boy  over,  '  here  is  your  diamond.  It  has 
not  been  stolen ;  it  has  merely  been  swal 
lowed/  'What?' he  cried.  And  I  explain 
ed.  The  stud  mystery  was  explained.  Mr. 
Pinkham's  boy  had  eaten  it/' 

Holmes  paused. 

"  Well,  I  don't  see  how  that  proves  your 
point,"  said  I.  "  You  said  that  it  was  the 
little  things  that  told — " 

"So  it  was,"  said  Holmes.  "If  Polly 
hadn't  told—" 

"Enough,"  I  cried;  "it's  on  me,  old 
man.  We  will  go  down  to  Willis's  and 
have  some  Russian  caviare  and  a  bottle 
of  Burgundy." 

Holmes  put  on  his  hat  and  we  went  out 
together.  It  is  to  get  the  money  to  pay 
Willis's  bill  that  I  have  written  this  story 
of  "  The  Mystery  of  Pinkham's  Diamond 
Stud." 


XI 


LANG  TAMMAS  AND   DRUMSHEUGH   SWEAR 
OFF 

A  tale  of  dialect  told  by  Mr.  Berkeley  Hights,  holder 
of  the  twelfth  ball 

f<  HOOT  mon !" 

The  words  rang  out  derisively  on  the 
cold  frosty  air  of  Drumtochty,  as  Lang 
Tammas  walked  slowly  along  the  street, 
looking  for  the  residence  of  Drumsheugh. 
The  effect  was  electrical.  Tammas  stop 
ped  short,  and  turning  about,  scanned  the 
street  eagerly  to  see  who  it  was  that  had 
spoken.  But  the  highway  was  deserted, 
and  the  old  man  shook  his  stick,  as  if  at 
an  imaginary  foe. 

"  I'll  hoot-mon  the  dour  eediot  that's 
eensoolted  a  veesitor  to  Drumtochty  !"  he 
207 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

shouted.     "I  haena  brought  me  faithfu' 
steck  for  naething  I"  he  added. 

He  glared  about,  now  at  this  closed 
window,  now  at  that,  as  if  inviting  his 
enemy  to  come  forth  and  be  punished,  but 
seeing  no  signs  of  life,  turned  again  to 
resume  his  walk,  muttering  angrily  to 
himself.  It  was  indeed  hardly  to  be 
tolerated  that  he,  one  of  the  great  char 
acters  of  fiction,  should  be  thus  jeered  at, 
as  he  thought,  while  on  a  friendly  pil 
grimage  from  Thrums  to  Drumtochty,  the 
two  rival  towns  in  the  affections  of  the 
consumers  of  modern  letters;  and  having 
walked  all  the  way  from  his  home  at 
Thrums,  Lang  Tammas  was  tired,  and 
therefore  in  no  mood  to  accept  even  a 
mild  affront,  much  less  an  insult. 

He  had  scarcely  covered  ten  paces,  how 
ever,  when  the  same  voice,  with  a  harsh 
cackling  laugh,  again  broke  the  stillness 
of  the  street : 

"  Gang  awa',  gang  awa' — ha,  ha,  ha !" 

Tammas  rushed  into  the  middle  of  the 
way  and  picked  up  a  stone. 
208 


"  'HOOT  MON  !'" 


THE    SCOTCHMEN    SWEAR    OFF 

"  Pit  your  bogie  pate  oot  o'  your  ween- 
dow,  me  gillie  !"  he  cried.  "  I'll  gie  it  a 
garry  crack.  Pit  it  oot,  I  say  !  Pit  it 
oot !" 

And  the  old  man  drew  himself  back 
into  an  attitude  which  would  have  defied 
the  powers  of  Phidias  to  reproduce  in 
marble,  the  stone  poised  accurately  and 
all  too  ready  to  be  hurled. 

"  Ye  ramshackle  macloonatic!"  he  cried. 
"Standin'  in  a  weendow,  where  nane  may 
see,  an7  heepin'  eensoolts  on  deecint  f owk. 
Pit  it  oot — pit  it  oot — an'  get  it  crackit !" 

The  reply  was  instant : 

"  Gang  awa',  gang  awa' — ha,  ha,  ha!" 

Had  Lang  Taminas  been  a  creation  of 
Lever,  he  would  at  this  point  have  removed 
his  coat  and  his  hat  and  thrown  them 
down  violently  to  earth,  and  then  have 
whacked  the  walk  three  times  with  the 
stout  stick  he  carried  in  his  right  hand,  as 
a  preliminary  to  the  challenge  which  fol 
lowed.  But  Tammas  was  not  Irish,  and 
therefore  not  impulsive.  He  was  Scotch- 
as  Scotch  as  ever  was.  Wherefore  he  re- 
211 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

moved  his  hat,  and,  after  dusting  it  care 
fully,,  hung  it  up  on  a  convenient  hook ; 
took  off  his  coat  and  folded  it  neatly; 
picked  up  his  "  faithfu'  steck,"  and  ob 
served  : 

"  I  hae  naething  to  do  that's  of  eempor- 
tance.  Drurnsheugh  can  wait,  an'  sae  can 
ee.  Pit  it  oot,  pit  it  oot  !  Here  I  am, 
an'  here  I  stay  until  ye  pit  it  oot  to  be 
crack  it." 

"  Gang  awa',  gang  awa' — ha,  ha,  ha !" 
came  the  reply. 

Lang  Tammas  turned  on  the  instant  to 
the  sources  of  the  sound.  He  fixed  his 
eyes  sternly  on  the  very  window  whence 
he  thought  the  words  had  issued. 

"Number  fc wan ty- three,  saxth  floor/' 
he  muttered  to  himself.  "  I  will  call,  and 
then  we  shall  see  what  we  shall  see ;  and 
if  what  we  see  gets  off  wi'oot  a  thorough 
'  hootin','  then  I  dinna  ken  mebeezniss." 

Hastily  discarding  his  outward  wrath, 
and  assuming  such  portions  of  his  gar 
ments  as  went  with  his  society  manner, 
Tammas  walked  into  the  lobby  of  the 


A   SWEET-FACED  NURSE   APPEARED 


THE   SCOTCHMEN    SWEAR   OFF 

apartment-house  in  which  his  assumed  in- 
sulter  lived.  He  pushed  the  electric  but 
ton  in,  and  shortly  a  sweet -faced  nurse 
appeared. 

"  Who  are  you  ?"  she  asked. 

"Me,"  said  Lang  Tammas,  somewhat 
abashed.  "  I've  called  too  see  the  head  o' 
the  hoose." 

"I  am  sorry,"  said  the  trained  nurse, 
bursting  into  tears,  "  but  the  head  of  the 
house  is  at  the  point  of  death,  sir,  and  can 
not  see  you  until  to-morrow.  Call  around 
about  ten  o'clock." 

"Hoots  an'  toots  !"  sighed  Lang  Tam 
mas.  "  Canna  we  Scuts  have  e'er  a  story 
wi'oot  somebody  leein'  at  the  point  o' 
death  !  It's  most  affectin',  but  doonricht 
wearin'  on  the  constitootion." 

"  Was  there  anything  you  wished  to  say 
to  him  ?"  asked  the  nurse. 

"  Oh,  aye !"  returned  Lang  Tammas. 
"  I  dinna  ken  hoo  to  deny  that  I  hed  that 
to  say  to  him,  an'  to  do  to  him  as  weel. 
I'm  a  vairy  truthfu'  mon,  young  lady,  an' 
if  ye  must  be  told,  I've  called  to  wring  his 
215 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

garry  neck  for  dereesively  gee'in  an  un 
offending  veesitor  frae  Thrums  by  yelling 
deealect  at  him  frae  the  hoose-tops." 

"  Are  you  sure  it  was  here  ?"  asked  the 
nurse,  anxiously,  the  old  gentleman  seemed 
so  deeply  in  earnest. 

"Sure?  Oh,  aye — pairfectly,"  replied 
Lang  Tammas ;  but  even  as  he  spoke,  the 
falsity  of  his  impression  was  proved  by  the 
same  strident  voice  that  had  so  offended 
before,  coming  from  the  other  side  of  the 
street  : 

"  What  a  crittnr  ye  are,  ye  cow  !  What 
a  crittur  ye  are  !" 

"  Soonds  are  hard  to  place,  ma'am,"  said 
Lang  Tammas,  jerking  about  as  if  he  had 
been  shot.  It  was  a  very  hard  position  for 
the  old  man,  for,  with  the  immediate  need 
for  an  apology  to  the  nurse,  there  rushed 
over  him  an  overwhelming  wave  of  anger. 
Hitherto  it  was  merely  a  suspicion  that  he 
was  being  made  sport  of  that  had  irritated 
him,  but  this  last  outburst — "  What  a  crit 
tur  ye  are,  ye  cow  !" — was  convincing  evi 
dence  that  it  was  to  him  that  the  insults 
216 


THE   SCOTCHMEN   SWEAR  OFF 

were  addressed;  for  in  Thrums  it  is  his 
tory  that  Hendry  and  T'nowhead  and 
Jim  McTaggart  frequently  greeted  Lang 
Tammas's  jokes  with  "  Oh,  ye  cow  !"  and 
"What  a  crittur  ye  are!"  But  the  old 
man  was  equal  to  the  emergency,  and  fix 
ing  one  eye  upon  the  house  opposite  and 
the  other  upon  the  sweet-faced  nurse,  he 
darted  glances  that  should  kill  at  his  per 
secutor,  and  at  the  same  time  apologized 
for  disturbing  the  nurse.  The  latter  he 
did  gracefully. 

"Ye  look  aweary,  ma'am/'  he  said. 
"An'  if  the  head  o'  the  hoose  maun  dee, 
may  he  dee  immediately,  that  ye  may  rest 
soon." 

And  with  this,  pulling  his  hat  down 
over  his  forehead  viciously,  he  turned  and 
sped  swiftly  across  the  way.  The  nurse 
gazed  anxiously  after  him,  and  in  her  se 
cret  soul  wondered  if  she  would  not  better 
send  for  Jamie  McQueen,  the  town  consta 
ble.  Poor  Tammas's  eye  was  really  so 
glaring,  and  his  whole  manner  so  mani 
festly  that  of  a  man  exasperated  to  the 
217 


THE    DREAMERS:    A   CLUB 

verge  of  madness,  that  she  considered 
him  somewhat  in  the  light  of  a  menace 
to  the  public  safety.  She  was  not  at  all 
reassured,  either,  when  Tammas,  having 
reached  the  other  side  of  the  street,  began 
gesticulating  wildly,  shaking  his  "faith- 
fu'  steck"  at  the  fagade  of  the  confront 
ing  flat-house.  But  an  immediate  reali 
zation  of  the  condition  of  the  sick  man 
above  led  her  to  forego  the  attempt  to 
protect  the  public  safety,  and  closing  the 
door  softly  to,  she  climbed  the  weary 
stairs  to  the  sixth  floor,  and  soon  forgot 
the  disturbing  trial  of  the  morning  in 
reading  to  her  patient  certain  inspiring 
chapters  from  the  Badminton  edition  of 
Haggert's  Chase  of  Heretics,  relieved  with 
the  lighter  Rules  of  Golf ;  or,  Auld  Putt 
Idylls,  by  the  Rev.  Ian  McOockett,  one 
of  the  most  exquisitely  confusing  humor 
ous  works  ever  published  in  the  High 
lands. 

Lang  Tammas  meanwhile  was  address 
ing  an  invisible  somebody  in  the  building 
over  the  way,  and  in  no  uncertain  tones. 
218 


THE   SCOTCHMEN   SWEAR   OFF 

"  If  I  were  not  a  geentlemon  and  a  hu 
morist,"  he  said,  impressively,  agitating 
his  stick  nervously  at  the  building  front, 
"  I  could  say  much  that  nae  Scut  may  say. 
But  were  I  nae  Scut,  I'd  say  this  to  ye  : 
'  Ye  have  all  the  eelements  of  a  confairmed 
heeritic.  Ye've  nae  sense  of  deecint  fun. 
Ye're  not  a  man  for  a'  that,  as  most  men 
air — ye're  an  ass,  plain  and  simple,  wi' 
naether  the  plainness  nor  the  simplee- 
city  o'  the  individual  that  Balaam  rode. 
Further — more — 

What  Lang  Tammas  would  have  said 
furthermore  had  he  not  been  a  Scot  the 
world  will  never  know,  for  from  the  other 
side  of  the  street  —  farther  along,  how 
ever — came  the  squawking  voice  again  : 

"  Gang  awa',  gang  awa',  ye  crittur,  ye 
cow  !  Hoot  mon — hoot  mon — hoot  mon  ! 
Gang  awa',  gang  awa' !"  And  this  was 
followed  by  a  raucous  cry,  which  might 
or  might  not  have  been  Scottish,  but 
which  was,  in  any  event,  distinctly  mad 
dening.  And  even  as  the  previous  in 
sults  had  electrified  poor  Tammas,  so  this 
219 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

last  petrified  him,  and  he  stood  for  an  ap 
preciable  length  of  time  absolutely  trans 
fixed.  His  mind  was  a  curious  study. 
His  coming  had  been  prompted  entirely 
by  the  genial  spirit  which  throbbed  be 
neath  his  stony  Scottish  exterior.  For  a 
long  time  he  had  been  a  resident  of  the 
most  conspicuous  Scotch  town  in  all  liter 
ature,  and  he  was  himself  its  accepted 
humorist.  Then  on  a  sudden  Thrums 
had  a  rival.  Drumtochty  sprang  forth, 
and  in  the  matter  of  pathos,  if  not  humor, 
ran  Thrums  hard  ;  and  Lang  Tammas, 
attracted  to  Drumsheugh,  had  come  this 
distance  merely  to  pay  his  respects,  and 
to  see  what  manner  of  man  the  real 
Drumsheugh  was. 

And  this  was  his  reception  !  To  be 
laughed  at — he,  a  Scotch  humorist !  Had 
any  one  ever  laughed  at  a  Scotch  humorist 
before  ?  Never.  Was  not  the  test  of  hu 
mor  in  Scotland  the  failure  to  laugh  of 
the  hearer  of  the  jest  ?  Would  Scotch 
humor  ever  prove  great  if  not  taken  seri 
ously  ?  Oh,  aye  !  Hendry  never  laughed 
220 


THE   SCOTCHMEN    SWEAR   OFF 

at  his  jokes,  and  Hendry  knew  a  joke  when 
he  saw  one.  McTaggart  never  smiled  at 
Lang  Tammas ;  and  as  for  the  little  Min 
ister — he  knew  what  was  due  to  the  humor 
ist  of  Thrums,  as  well  as  to  himself,  and 
enjoyed  the  exquisite  humor  of  Tammas 
with  a  reserve  well  qualified  to  please  the 
Presbytery  and  the  Congregation. 

How  long  Lang  Tammas  would  have 
stood  petrified  no  man  may  say;  but  just 
then  who  should  come  along  but  the  per 
son  he  had  come  to  call  upon  —  Drum- 
sheugh  himself. 

"  Knox  et  prceterea  nihil!"  he  ex 
claimed.  "  What  in  Glasgie  hae  we 
here  ?" 

Lang  Tammas  turned  upon  him. 

"  Ye  hae  nowt  in  Glasgie  here/'  he  said, 
sternly.  "  Ye  hae  a  vairy  muckle  pit-oot 
veesitor,  wha  hae  coom  on  an  airand  o' 
good-will  to  be  gret  wi'  eensoolts." 

"  Eensoolts  ?"  retorted  Drumsheugh. 
"  Eensoolts,  ye  say  ?  An'  wha  hae  bin 
eensooltin'  ye  ?" 

"  That  I  know  nowt  of,  save  that  he  be 
223 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

a  doonricht  foo'  a-heepin'  his  deealect 
upon  me  head/'  said  Lang  Tammas. 

"And  wha  are  ye  to  be  so  seensitive  o' 
deealect  ?"  demanded  Drumsheugh. 

"My  name  is  Lang  Tammas — 

"  0'  Thrums  ?"  cried  Drumsheugh. 

"  Nane  ither,"  said  Tammas. 

Drumsheugh  burst  into  an  uproarious 
fit  of  laughter. 

"The  humorist?"  he  cried,  catching 
his  sides. 

"Nane  ither,"  said  Tammas,  gravely. 
"And  wha  are  ye  ?" 

"  Me  ?  Oh,  Fm — Drumsheugh  o'  Drum- 
tochty,"  he  replied.  "  Come  along  hame 
wi'  me.  I'll  gie  ye  that  to  make  the  een- 
soolt  seem  a  compliment." 

And  the  two  old  men  walked  off  to 
gether. 

An  hour  later,  on  their  way  to  the  kirk, 
Drumsheugh  observed  that  after  the  ser 
vice  was  over  he  would  go  with  Lang 
Tammas  and  seek  out  the  man  who  had 
insulted  him  and  "gie"  him  a  drubbing, 
which  invitation  Tammas  was  nothing 
224 


THE    SCOTCHMEN    SWEAR    OFF 

loath  to  accept.  Reverently  the  two  new- 
made  friends  walked  into  the  kirk  and 
sat  themselves  down  on  the  side  aisle.  A 
hymn  was  sung,  and  the  minister  was 
about  to  read  from  the  book,  when  the 
silence  of  the  church  was  broken  by  a 
shrill  voice  : 

"  Hoot  mon  !     Hoot  mon  !" 

Tammas  clutched  his  stick.  The  voice 
was  the  same,  and  here  it  had  penetrated 
the  sacred  precincts  of  the  church  !  No 
where  was  he  safe  from  insult.  Drum- 
sheugh  looked  up,  startled,  and  the  voice 
began  again : 

"Gang  awa'  a- that,  a-that,  a-that  — 
gang  awa' !  Oh,  ye  crittur  !  oh,  ye  cow  !" 

And  then  a  titter  ran  through  that 
solemn  crowd ;  for,  despite  the  gravity  of 
the  situation,  even  John  Knox  himself 
must  have  smiled.  A  great  green  parrot 
had  flown  in  at  one  of  the  windows,  and 
had  perched  himself  on  the  pulpit,  where, 
with  front  undismayed,  he  addressed  the 
minister : 

"  Gang  awa',  gang  awa'!"  he  cried,  and 
p  225 


THE    DREAMERS:     A    CLUB 

preened    himself.       "  Hoot    mon,    gang 
awa'!" 

"  Knox  nobiscum!"  ejaculated  Drum- 
sheugh.  "  It's  Moggie  McPiggert's  pair- 
rut,"  and  he  chuckled  ;  and  then,  as  Lang 
Tammas  realized  the  situation,  even  he 
smiled  broadly.  He  had  been  insulted  by 
a  parrot  only,  and  the  knowledge  of  it 
made  him  feel  better. 

The  bird  was  removed  and  the  service 
proceeded ;  and  later,  when  it  was  over, 
as  the  two  old  fellows  walked  back  to 
Drumsheugh's  house  in  the  gathering 
shades  of  the  night,  Lang  Tammas  said: 

"I  acquet  Drumtochty  o'  its  eensoolts, 
Drumsheugh,  but  Fve  lairnt  a  lesson  this 
day." 

"What's  that  ?"  asked  Drumsheugh. 

"When  pairruts  speak  Scutch  deealect, 
it's  time  we  Scuts  gae  it  oop,"said  Tammas. 

"I  think  so  myseP,"  agreed  Drum 
sheugh.  "  But  hoo  express  our  thochts?" 

"  I  dinna  ken  for  ye,"  said  Lang  Tam 
mas,  "but  for  me,  mee  speakee  heathen 
Chinee  this  timee  on." 
226 


THE    SCOTCHMEN    SWEAR    OFF 

"Vairy  weel,"  returned  Drumsheugh. 
"  Vairy  weel ;  I  dinna  ken  heathen  Chinee, 
but  I  hae  some  acqueentancewi'the  tongue 
o'  sairtain  Amairicans,  and  that  Pll  speak 
from  this  day  on — it's  vairy  weel  called 
the  Bowery  eediom,  and  is  a  judeecious 
mixture  o'  English,  Irish,  and  Volapeck." 

And  from  that  time  on  Lang  Tammas 
and  Drumsheugh  spoke  never  another 
word  of  Scotch  dialect ;  and  while  Tam 
mas  never  quite  mastered  pidgin-English, 
or  Drumsheugh  the  tongue  of  Fadden, 
they  lived  happily  ever  after,  which  in  a 
way  proves  that,  after  all,  the  parrot  is  a 
useful  as  well  as  an  ornamental  bird. 


XII 

CONCLUSION — LIKEWISE   MR.  BILLY 
JONES 

THE  cheers  which  followed  the  narra 
tion  of  the  curious  resolve  of  Lang  Tam- 
mas  and  Drumsheugh  were  vociferous, 
and  Berkeley  Rights  sat  down  with  a 
flush  of  pleasure  on  his  face.  He  con 
strued  these  as  directed  towards  himself 
and  his  contribution  to  the  diversion  of 
the  evening.  It  never  entered  into  his 
mind  that  the  applause  involved  a  bit  X)f 
subtle  appreciation  of  the  kindness  of 
Tammas  and  of  Drumsheugh  to  the  read 
ing  public  in  thus  declining  to  give  them 
more  of  something  of  which  they  had  al 
ready  had  enough. 

When  the  cheers  had  subsided  Mr. 
228 


CONCLUSION 

Jones  rose  from  his  chair  and  congratu 
lated  the  club  upon  its  exhibit. 

"  Even  if  you  have  but  faintly  re-echoed 
the  weaknesses  of  the  strong,"  he  said, 
"you  have  done  well,  and  I  congratulate 
you.  It  is  not  every  man  in  your  walk  in 
life  who  can  write  as  grammatically  as  you 
have  dreamed.  I  have  failed  to  detect  in 
any  one  of  the  stories  or  poems  thus  far 
read  a  single  grammatical  error,  and  I 
have  no  doubt  that  the  manuscripts  that 
you  have  read  from  are  gratifyingly  free 
from  mistakes  in  spelling  as  well,  so  that, 
from  a  newspaper  man's  stand-point,  I  see 
no  reason  why  you  should  not  get  these 
proceedings  published,  especially  if  you 
do  it  at  your  own  expense. 

"  I  now  declare  The  Dreamers  ad 
journed  sine  die!" 

"  Not  much  P  cried  the  members,  unan 
imously.  "  Where's  your  contribution  ?" 

"  Out  with  it,  William  !"  shouted  Tom 
Snobbe.     "I  can  tell  by  the  set  of  your 
coat  that  you've  got  a  manuscript  con 
cealed  in  your  pocket." 
229 


THE    DREAMERS:     A    CLUB 

"There's  nothing  ruins  the  set  of  a 
coat  more  quickly  than  a  rejected  manu 
script  in  the  pocket/'  put  in  Hudson  Riv 
ers.  "  I've  been  there  myself  —  so,  as 
Lang  Tammas  said,  Billy,  '  Pit  it  oot,  and 
get  it  crackit."; 

"Well,"  Tones  replied,  with  a  pleased 
smile,  "to  tell  you  the  truth,  gentlemen, 
I  had  come  prepared  in  case  I  was  called 
upon  ;  but  the  hour  is  late,"  he  added, 
after  the  manner  of  one  who,  though  wi-11- 
ing,  enjoyed  being  persuaded.  "  Perhaps 
we  had  better  postpone — " 

"  Out  with  it,  old  man.  It  is  late,  but 
it  will  be  later  still  if  you  don't  hurry  up 
and  begin,"  said  Tenafly  Paterson. 

"Very  well,  then,  here  goes," said  Jorues. 
"  Mine  is  a  ghost-story,  gentlemen,  and  it 
is  called  '  The  Involvular  Club ;  or,  The 
Return  of  the  Screw.'  It  is,  like  the  rest 
of  the  work  this  evening,  imitative,  after  a 
fashion,  but  I  think  it  will  prove  effective." 

Mr.  Jones  hereupon  took  the  manu 
script  from  his  bulging  pocket  and  read 
as  follows : 

230 


MR.  JONES  BEGINS 


CONCLUSION 

THE  INVOLVULAR  CLUB;   OR,  THE  RE 
TURN  OF  THE  SCREW 

The  story  had  taken  hold  upon  us  as  we 
sat  round  the  blazing  hearth  of  Lord  Or- 
mont's  smoking-room,  at  Castle  Aminta, 
and  sufficiently  interfered  with  our  com 
fort,  as  indeed  from  various  points  of 
view,  not  to  specify  any  one  of  the  many, 
for  they  were,  after  all,  in  spite  of  their 
diversity,  of  equal  value  judged  by  any 
standard,  not  even  excepting  the  highest, 
that  of  Vereker's  disturbing  narrative  of 
the  uncanny  visitor  to  his  chambers,  which 
the  reader  may  recall  —  indeed,  must  re 
call  if  he  ever  read  it,  since  it  was  the 
most  remarkable  ghost-story  of  the  year 
— a  year  in  which  many  ghost-stories  of 
wonderful  merit,  too,  were  written — and 
by  which  his  reputation  was  made  —  or 
rather  extended,  for  there  were  a  certain 
few  of  us,  including  Feverel  and  Vander- 
bank  and  myself,  who  had  for  many  years 
known  him  as  a  constant — almost  too  con 
stant,  some  of  us  ventured,  tentatively 
233 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

perhaps,  but  not  the  less  convincedly,  to 
say  —  producer  of  work  of  a  very  high 
order  of  excellence,  rivalling  in  some  of 
its  more  conspicuous  elements,  as  well  as 
in  its  minor,  to  lay  no  stress  upon  his 
subtleties,  which  were  marked,  though  at 
times  indiscreetly  inevident  even  to  the 
keenly  analytical,  hinging  as  these  did 
more  often  than  not  upon  abstractions 
born  only  of  a  circumscribed  environment 
— circumscribed,  of  course,  in  the  larger 
sense  which  means  the  narrowing  of  a  cir 
cle  of  appreciation  down  to  the  select  few 
constituting  its  essence — the  productions 
of  the  greatest  masters  of  fictional  style 
the  world  has  known,  or  is  likely,  in  view 
of  present  tendencies  towards  miscalled 
romance,  which  consists  solely  of  depict 
ing  scenes  in  which  bloodshed  and  mur 
der  are  rife,  soon  to  know  again — it  was 
proper  it  should,  in  a  company  chosen  as 
ours  had  been  from  among  the  members 
of  The  Involvular  Club,  with  Adrian  Fev- 
erel  at  its  head,  Vereker  as  its  vice-presi 
dent,  and  Lord  Ormont,  myself,  and  a 
234 


CONCLUSION 

number  of  ladies,  including  Diana  of  the 
Crossways,  and  little  Maisie — for  the  child 
was  one  of  our  cares,  her  estate  was  so 
pitiable  a  one  —  Rhoda  Fleming,  Daisy 
Miller,  and  Princess  Cassimassima,  one 
and  all,  as  the  reader  must  be  aware,  per 
sonages — if  I  may  thus  refer  to  a  group 
of  appreciation  which  included  myself— 
who  knew  a  good  thing  when  they  saw  it, 
which,  it  may  as  well  be  confessed  at 
once,  we  rarely  did  in  the  raucous  fields 
of  fiction  outside  of,  though  possibly  at 
times  moderately  contiguous  to,  our  own 
territory,  although  it  should  be  said  that 
Miss  Miller  occasionally  manifested  a 
lamentable  lack  of  regard  for  the  objects 
for  which  The  Involvular  was  formed,  by 
showing  herself,  in  her  semi  -  American 
way,  regrettably  direct  of  speech  and  giv 
en  over  not  infrequently  to  an  unhappy 
use  of  slang,  which  we  all,  save  Maisie, 
who  was  young,  and,  in  spite  of  all  she 
knew,  not  quite  so  knowledgeable  a  young 
person  as  some  superficial  observers  have 
chosen  to  believe,  sincerely  deprecated, 
235 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

and  on  occasion  when  it  might  be  done 
tactfully,  endeavored  to  mitigate  by  a  re 
proving  glance,  or  by  a  still  deeper  plunge 
into  nebulous  rhetoric,  as  a  sort  of  pallia 
tion  to  the  Muse  of  Obscurity,  which  in 
our  hearts  we  felt  that  good  goddess 
would  accept,  strove  to  offset. 

["Excuse  me,"  said  Mr.  Tom  Snobbe, 
rising  and  interrupting  the  reader  at  this 
point,  "but  is  that  all  one  sentence,  Mr. 
Jones  r 

"  Yes/'  Jones  replied.  "  Why  not  ?  It's 
perfectly  clear  in  its  meaning.  Aren't  you 
used  to  long  sentences  on  the  Hudson  ?" 
he  added,  sarcastically. 

"  No,"  retorted  Snobbe  ;  "  that  is  to 
say,  not  where  I  live.  I  believe  they  have 
'em  at  Sing  Sing  occasionally.  But  they 
never  get  used  to  them,  I'm  told." 

"  Be  quiet,  Tom,"  said  Harry  Snobbe. 
"It's  bad  form  to  interrupt.  Let  Billy 
finish  his  story."  Mr.  Jones  then  resumed 
his  manuscript.] 

A  perceptible  shudder  ran  through,  or 
rather  rolled  over,  the  group,  for  it  was 
236 


CONCLUSION 

corrugating  in  its  quality,  bringing  for 
cibly  to  mind,  quite  as  much  for  its  chill, 
too,  as  for  the  wrinkling  suggestion  of  its 
passage  up  and  down  our  backs,  turned  as 
some  of  these  were  towards  the  fire,  and 
others  towards  the  steam-radiator,  which 
now  and  again  clicked  startlingly  in  the 
dull  red  glow  of  the  hearth  light,  aug 
menting  the  all  too  obvious  nervousness 
of  the  listeners,  the  impassive  and  unin 
spiring  squares  of  iron  of  which  certain 
modern  architects  of  a  limited  decorative 
sense — if,  indeed,  they  have  any  at  all,  for 
the  mere  use  of  corrugated  iron  in  the 
construction  of  a  facade  would  seem  not 
to  admit  of  an  sesthetic  side  to  its  design 
er's  nature,  however  ornately  distributed 
over  the  surface  of  an  exterior  it  may 
be  —  have  chosen  to  avail  themselves, 
prompted  either  by  an  appalling  par 
simony  on  the  part  of  a  client,  or  for 
reasons  of  haste  employed  for  the  lack 
of  more  immediately  available  material,  it 
being  an  undeniable  fact  that  in  some 
portions  of  the  world  stucco  and  terra- 
237 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

cotta,  now  frequently  used  in  lieu  of  more 
substantial,  if  not  more  enduring  ma 
terials,  are  difficult  of  access,  and  the  use 
of  a  speedily  obtainable  substitute  becom 
ing  thus  a  requirement  as  inevitable  as  it 
is  to  be  regretted,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
fruit-market  at  Venice,  stand  ing  as  it  does 
on  the  bank  of  the  Grand  Canal,  a  pile  of 
stark,  staring,  obtrusive,  wrinkling  zinc 
thrusting  itself  brazenly  into  the  line  of  a 
vision  attuned  to  the  most  gloriously  tow 
ering  palazzos,  as  rich  in  beauty  as  in 
romance,  with  such  self-sufficiency  as  to 
bring  tears  to  the  eyes  of  the  most  stolidly 
unappreciative,  of  the  most  coldly  unaes- 
thetic,  or,  in  short,  as  some  one  has  chosen 
to  say,  in  an  essay  the  title  of  which  and 
the  name  of  whose  author  escape  us  at 
this  moment,  with  such  complacent  vul 
garity  as  to  amount  to  nothing  less  than  a 
dastardly  blot  upon  the  escutcheon  of 
the  Venetians,  which  all  of  their  glorious 
achievements  in  art,  in  history,  and  in 
letters  can  never  auite  ineradically  efface, 
and  alongside  of  which  the  whistling 
238 


CONCLUSION 

steam -tugs  with  their  belching  funnels, 
which  are  by  slow  degrees  supplanting 
the  romantic  gondolier  with  his  pictu 
resque  costume  and  his  tender  songs  of 
sunny  climes  in  the  cab  service  of  the 
Bride  of  the  Adriatic,  seem  quite  excus 
able,  or,  in  any  event,  not  so  unforgivable 
as  to  constitute  what  the  Americans  would 
call  an  infernal  shame. 

[At  this  point  the  reader  was  inter 
rupted  again. 

"Hold  on  a  minute,  Billy  —  will  you, 
please?"  said  Tenafly  Paterson.  "Let's 
get  this  story  straight.  As  I  understand 
the  first  sentence  somebody  told  a  ghost- 
story,  didn't  he  ?" 

"  Yes,"  replied  Jones,  a  trifle  annoyed. 

"And  the  second  sentence  means  that 
those  who  heard  it  felt  creepy  ?" 

"Precisely." 

"Then  why  the  deuce  couldn't  yon 
have  said,  '  When  So-and-So  had  finished, 
the  company  shuddered'?" 

"  Because,"  replied  Jones,  "  I  am  read 
ing  a  story  which  is  constructed  after  the 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

manner  of  a  certain  school.  I'm  not  read 
ing  a  postal-card  or  a  cable  message." 

The  reader  then  resumed.] 

Miss  Miller,  to  relieve  the  strain  upon 
the  nerves  of  those  present,  which  was 
becoming  unbearably  tense — and,  in  fact, 
poor  Maisie  had  burst  into  tears  with  the 
sheer  terror  of  the  climax,  and  had  been 
taken  off  to  be  put  to  bed  by  Mrs.  Brooken- 
ham,  who,  in  spite  of  many  other  quali 
ties,  was  still  a  womanly  woman  at  heart, 
and  not  wholly  deficient  in  those  little 
tendernesses,  those  trifling  but  ineffable 
softnesses  of  nature,  which  are  at  once  the 
chief  source  of  woman's  strength  and  of 
her  weakness,  a  fact  she  was  constantly 
manifesting  to  us  during  our  stay  at  Lord 
Ormont's,  and  which  we  all  remarked  and 
in  some  cases  commented  upon,  since  the 
discovery  had  in  it  some  of  the  qualities 
of  a  revelation — began  to  sing  one  of  those 
extraordinary  popular  songs  that  one  hears 
at  the  music-halls  in  London,  and  in  the 
politer  and  more  refined  circles  of  Ameri 
can  society,  if  indeed  there  may  be  said  to 
240 


CONCLUSION 

be  such  a  thing  in  a  land  so  new  as  to  be 
as  yet  mostly  veneer,  with  little  that  is 
solid  in  its  social  substructure,  beginning 
as  its  constituent  factors  do  at  the  top 
and  working  downward,  rather  than  choos 
ing  the  more  natural  course  of  beginning 
at  the  bottom  and  working  upward,  and 
which  must  materially,  one  may  think, 
affect  the  social  solidarity  of  the  nation 
by  retarding  its  growth  and  in  otherwise 
interfering  with  its  healthy,  not  to  say 
normal  development,  and  which,  as  the 
words  and  import  of  it  come  back  to  me, 
was  known  by  the  rather  vulgar  and 
vernacular  title  of  "  All  Coons  Look  Alike 
to  Me,"  thus  indicating  that  the  life  treated 
of  in  the  melody,  which  was  not  altogether 
unmusical,  and  was  indeed  as  a  matter  of 
fact  quite  fetching  in  its  quality,  running 
in  one's  ears  for  days  and  nights  long 
after  its  first  hearing,  was  that  of  the 
negro,  and  his  personal  likeness  to  his 
other  black  brethren  in  the  eyes  even  of 
one  who  was  supposed  to  have  been  at 
one  time,  prior  to  the  action  of  the  song 
Q  241 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

if  not  coincidently  with  it,  the  object  of  his 
affections. 

[Had  Jones  not  been  wholly  absorbed 
in  the  reading  of  this  wonderful  story,  he 
might  at  this  moment  have  heard  a  slight 
but  unmistakable  rumbling  sound,  and 
have  looked  up  and  seen  much  that 
would  have  interested  him.  But,  as  this 
kind  of  a  story  requires  for  its  complete 
comprehension  a  complete  concentration 
of  mind,  he  did  not  hear,  and  so,  continu 
ing,  did  not  see.] 

Diana  was  the  first  to  mitigate  the 
silence  with  comment  [he  read]  a  silence 
whose  depth  had  only  been  rendered  the 
more  depressing  by  Miss  Miller's  uncalled- 
for  intrusion  upon  our  mood  of  something 
that  smacked  of  a  society  towards  which 
most  of  us,  in  so  far  as  we  were  able  to  do 
so,  had  always  cultivated  a  strenuous  aloof 
ness,  prompted  not  by  any  whelmf  ul  sense 
of  our  own  perfection,  latent  or  obvious, 
but  rather  by  a  realization  on  our  part 
that  it  lacked  the  essentials  that  could 
make  of  it  an  interesting  part  of  the  lives 
242 


CONCLUSION 

of  a  group  given  over  wholly,  or  at  least 
as  nearly  wholly  as  the  exiguities  of  ex 
istence  would  permit  of  a  persistent  and 
continuous  devotion,  to  the  contemplation 
of  the  beautiful  in  art,  letters,  or  any 
other  phase  of  human  endeavor. 

"And  did  his  soul  never  thaw  ?"  Diana 
asked. 

"Never,"  replied  Vanderbank,  "It  is 
frozen  yet." 


Here  the  rumbling  sound  grew  to  such 
volume  that,  absorbed  as  he  was  in  his 
reading,  Jones  could  no  longer  fail  to  hear 
it.  Lowering  his  manuscript,  he  looked 
sternly  upon  the  company.  The  rum 
bling  sound  was  a  chorus,  not  unmusical, 
of  snores. 

The  Dreamers  slept. 

"  Well,  I'll  be  hanged  \"  cried  Jones,  an 
grily,  and  then  he  walked  over  and  looked 
behind  the  screen  where  the  stenographer 
was  seated.  "  Fll  finish  it  if  it  takes  all 
night,"  he  muttered.  "Just  take  this 
245 


THE    DREAMERS:    A    CLUB 

down,"  he  added  to  the  stenographer; 
but  that  worthy  never  stirred  or  made 
reply.  He  too  was  sleeping. 

Jones  muttered  angrily  to  himself. 

"Very  well,"  he  said.  "Fll  read  it  to 
myself,  then,"  and  he  began  again.  For 
ten  minutes  he  continued,  and  then  on  a 
sudden  his  voice  faltered ;  his  head  fell 
forward  upon  his  chest,  his  knees  collapsed 
beneath  him,  and  he  slid  inert,  and  snor 
ing  himself,  into  his  chair.  The  MS. 
fluttered  to  the  floor,  and  an  hour  later 
the  waiters  entering  the  room  found  the 
club  unanimously  engaged  in  dreaming 
once  more. 

The  Involvular  Club  was  too  much  for 
them,  even  for  the  author  of  it,  but 
whether  this  was  because  of  the  lateness 
of  the  hour  or  because  of  the  intricacies 
of  the  author's  style  I  have  never  been 
able  to  ascertain,  for  Mr.  Jones  is  very 
sore  on  the  point,  and  therefore  reticent, 
and  as  for  the  others,  I  cannot  find  that 
any  of  them  remember  enough  about  it  to 
be  able  to  speak  intelligently  on  the  subject. 
246 


THE   STENOGRAPHER   SLEPT 


CONCLUSION 

All  I  do  know  is  what  the  landlord  tells 
me,  and  that  is  that  at  5  A.M.  thirteen 
cabs  containing  thirteen  sleeping  souls 
pursued  their  thirteen  devious  ways  to 
thirteen  different  houses,  thus  indicating 
that  the  Dreamers  were  ultimately  ad 
journed,  and,  as  they  have  not  met  since, 
I  presume  the  adjournment  was,  as  usual, 
sine  die. 


THE    END 


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